Dorothy Gibson

Dorothy Gibson (nee Dorothy Winifred Brown, May 17,1889 – February 17,1946) was a pioneering actress in American silent film and a popular artist's model, active in the early 20th century. She is best remembered as a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic and for starring in the first film ever made about the disaster.

Early life and career

The daughter of John A. and Pauline Boesen Brown, Dorothy was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her father died when she was three years old and her mother remarried John Leonard Gibson.

Between 1906 and 1911, Dorothy Gibson appeared on stage as a singer and dancer in a number of theatre and vaudeville productions, the most important being on Broadway in Charles Frohman's musical The Dairymaids (1907). She was also a regular chorus member in shows produced by the Shubert Brothers at the Hippodrome Theatre.

In 1909, the year she married George Battier, Jr., Dorothy began posing for famous commercial artist Harrison Fisher, becoming one of his favorite models. Her image appeared regularly on posters, postcards, various merchandising products and in book illustrations over the next three years. Fisher also often chose her likeness for the covers of best-selling magazines like Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post. Dorothy was widely publicized during this time as "The Original Harrison Fisher Girl."

Meantime, Dorothy separated from Battier, though the couple was not divorced until about 1916.

Film career

Represented by top theatrical agent Pat Casey, Dorothy Gibson entered movies in early 1911, joining the Independent Motion Picture (IMP) Company as an extra and later the Lubin Film Company as a stock player. She was hired as leading lady by the new U.S. branch of Paris-based Eclair studios in July 1911. She was an instant hit with audiences, becoming one of the first actresses in the new medium of film to be promoted as a "star" in her own right.

Praised for her natural, subtle acting style, she was particularly effective as a comedienne in such popular one-reelers as Miss Masquerader (1911) and Love Finds a Way (1912), all of which were produced at Fort Lee, New Jersey, then the center of the burgeoning American motion picture industry.

Dorothy Gibson and Lamar Johnstone in a scene from the comedy, *The Lucky Hold Up* (1912).

Despite her popularity in comedies, one of her most important parts was that of Molly Pitcher in the historical drama, Hands Across the Sea (1911), Eclair's debut vehicle and her first star turn. By far Dorothy Gibson’s most famous screen role was that of herself in Saved From the Titanic (1912), based on her experiences in the legendary disaster. Saved From the Titanic, released a month after the sinking, was the first of many films about the event.

The episode of the Titanic is the best known aspect of Dorothy Gibson's life. After a six-week vacation in Italy with her mother, Dorothy was returning aboard Titanic to make a new series of pictures for Eclair at Fort Lee. The women had been playing bridge with friends in the lounge on the night of the ship's fatal collision with the iceberg. With two of their game partners they escaped in the first lifeboat launched. After arriving in New York on the rescue ship Carpathia, Dorothy was convinced by her manager to appear in a film based on the sinking. She not only starred in the one-reel drama, but wrote the scenario. She even appeared in the same clothing she had worn aboard Titanic –– a white silk evening dress topped with a cardigan and polo coat.

File:Dorothy-Titanic.jpg

Dorothy Gibson in a promotional photo for Saved From the Titanic (1912)

Although Saved From the Titanic was a tremendous success in America, England and France, no prints of it are known to exist today. It's considered by film historians to be one of the greatest losses of the silent era.

Dorothy’s other accomplishments in early cinema included starring in one of the first feature films made in the United States (Hands Across the Sea, 1911), co-starring in the first American-produced serial or chapter play (The Revenge of the Silk Masks, 1912), and making one of the first-ever public appearances by a movie personality (January 1912).

With contemporary Mary Pickford, whose undemonstrative acting style was compared to her own, Dorothy Gibson was the highest paid movie actress in the world at the time of her premature retirement in May 1912. In a brief but eventful cinematic career, Dorothy appeared in an estimated 16 Eclair films and in an unspecified number while at Lubin and IMP studios.

Dorothy left movies to pursue a choral career, her most notable appearance in that venue being at the Metropolitan Opera House in Madame Sans-Gene (1915).

Personal life

In 1911, Dorothy began a six year love affair with married movie tycoon Jules Brulatour, head of distribution for Eastman Kodak and co-founder of Universal Pictures. Brulatour was also an advisor and producer for Eclair; he backed several of Dorothy's films, including her 1912 hit Saved From the Titanic. A year later, while driving Brulatour's sports car in New York, Dorothy struck and killed a pedestrian. During the resulting court case, it was revealed in the press that she was his mistress. Although Brulatour was already separated from his wife, the humiliation of the scandal determined her to sue him for divorce, which was finalized in 1915. Brulatour's rising fame and political power forced him to legitimize his relationship with Dorothy Gibson, and the pair were finally wed in 1917.

Its legality challenged, the union was dissolved two years later as an invalid contract. To escape gossip and start a new life, Dorothy left New York for Paris, where she remained, except for the four years she spent in Italy during World War II.

Later life

A Nazi sympathizer and alleged intelligence operative, Dorothy Gibson Brulatour renounced her involvement by 1944. She was arrested as an anti-Fascist agitator and jailed at San Vittore, from which she escaped with two other prisoners, journalist Indro Montanelli and General Bartolo Zambon.

Living in France, in 1946 Dorothy died of a heart attack in her apartment at the Hôtel Ritz Paris at age 56. She is buried at Saint Germain-en-Laye Cemetery. Dorothy's estate was divided between her lover, Emilio Antonio Ramos, press attache for the Spanish Embassy in Paris, and her mother.

Legacy

Dorothy Gibson’s only surviving film is the adventure-comedy, The Lucky Holdup (1912). Salvaged by collectors David and Margo Navone in 2001, it was preserved by the American Film Institute and is now archived at the Library of Congress.

The character of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane is believed to have been partly based on Dorothy Gibson. She was also the inspiration for a character in her friend Indro Montanelli’s novel, General Della Rovere, which was turned into an award-winning film by director Roberto Rossellini in 1959.

Authors Don Lynch and John P. Eaton were the first contemporary historians to rediscover Dorothy Gibson, writing and lecturing about her as early as the 1980s. The first in-depth study of Dorothy's mysterious later life was conducted by Phillip Gowan and Brian Meister and published in the journal of the British Titanic Society in 2002. In 2005 the first full-length biography of Dorothy Gibson, by Randy Bryan Bigham, was released.

References

Bigham, Randy Bryan. Finding Dorothy: An Appreciation of the Life and Career of Dorothy Gibson Brulatour. ISBN 0-615-12752-5.
Bottomore, Stephen. Titanic and Silent Cinema.
Mills, Simon. The Titanic in Pictures. ISBN 1-899493-00-X.
Thompson, Frank. Lost Films: Important Movies That Disappeared. ISBN 0-8065-1604-6.

External links