Dorothy Mackaill

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Dorothy Mackaill (March 4, 1903 – August 12, 1990) was a British-American actress who was popular in silent films and early talking pictures in the 1920s and early 1930s.

She was born in Kingston upon Hull, England, and grew up with a father who ran a dance academy. After leaving school, she studied elocution and dancing in London, performed in stage shows, and eventually moved to New York at age 17 to join the Ziegfeld Follies. She began acting in films in 1920 with The Face at the Window and soon became a leading actress, earning a WAMPAS Baby Stars award in 1924.

Mackaill starred in notable silent films such as The Man Who Came Back (opposite George O’Brien) and The Mine with the Iron Door, and she successfully transitioned to sound with The Barker (1928). Her memorable 1932 film Love Affair, co-starring Humphrey Bogart, is among her best known works. She worked for several major studios before retiring in 1937 to care for her ailing mother.

She became a U.S. citizen in 1926. Mackaill was married three times: Lothar Mendes (1926–1928), Neil Albert Miller (1931–1934), and Harold Patterson (1947–1948). In 1955 she moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, and lived at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel as a celebrity-in-residence. She briefly returned to acting for two Hawaii Five-O appearances in 1976 and 1980. Dorothy Mackaill died of liver failure in Honolulu in 1990 at age 87; her ashes were scattered off Waikiki Beach.