Dorothy Dalton — Dorothy the Determined (1917) 🇺🇸

At the enormous, white studio of Thomas Ince at Culver City there was one young actress who had set a most prohibitive pace of work. Her determination to be doing and accomplishing something worth while had made her known among the studio people as the most tireless, energetic worker of the Ince-Triangle forces.

by Hazel Simpson Naylor

No other than Dorothy Dalton, she of the deep dimples, the languorous eyes, the bewitching grace of carriage, recently made a record for filming the greatest number of scenes in one day. She, her director, Charles Miller, and her supporting company left the studio at the early-worm-like hour of 8 a.m., captured a desirable “location” in Pasadena, and returned to Culver City before sundown with eighty-one scenes to their credit not one of which required a retake.

Miss Dalton is never found in any one place for very long at a time. When she is not busy at Lasky’s, she is out racing her car over the sun-lit roads or exercising her pet horse from the Los Angeles stables. Nevertheless, home — a most attractive, white bungalow with a charming garden — holds her contentedly happy for a longer length of time than any one would suspect. It was there that I and the cameraman caught her in a moment of relaxation. Leaning back in the most comfortable chair on her broad granolithic porch, while a gentle, caressing wind blew her dark, glossy locks whither it would, and even the famous dimples were at rest, Dorothy Dalton seemed far different from the energetic girl I had seen on the screen and been told about at the studio.

But her moment of rest came quickly to an end. When she saw she had callers, a vivacious sparkle of welcome lit up her large, dark eyes, and she chatted easily and quickly about her career for my particular benefit.

“I was born in Chicago,” she said, “and educated in a convent. But after graduation I took a course at the American Conservatory, and studied dramatic art under Hart Conway.

“I was stimulated to go on with a stage career because of my encouraging success in amateur theatricals. I obtained my first professional engagement with the Virginia Harned Stock Company in Chicago. For three years after that I alternated between stock companies and vaudeville.”

“Did you like vaudeville?” I questioned.

“It isn’t how much you like a thing that counts,” stated Miss Dalton philosophically. “The important point is, how it affects you or your career. Now I consider vaudeville the finest school in the world for a would-be screen actor. The requirements for the two are practically the same. The emphasis is placed on action, telling your story in pantomime — with the lines of as much importance as photoplay subtitles. The audience won’t stand for any long-winded accounts, but likes constant movement and variety. There is more real meat in a successful vaudeville sketch than there is in most full-length plays. Patrons made restless by the swift succession of trained seals, singers, acrobats and monologists haven’t the slightest interest in any but significant moments.

“It was a surprise to many of my friends that I had so little trouble adapting myself to screen demands, but that was exactly why.

“I began photoplay acting with Thomas Ince [Thomas H. Ince] in the summer of 1915. He knows — as he knows most things about the art of acting, in a way that is uncanny for a man who was in the profession for so short a time — just how vaudeville is the true sister of the movies; and so had little hesitation in entrusting me with roles a bit risky for the novice.

“Speaking of Thomas Ince reminds me that he trouped as an actor, once upon a time, in support of William H. Thompson, who was starred in ‘Civilizations’ Child;’ One of Mr. Ince’s sons is named after Mr. Thompson, another expression of his fine sentiment, which also brought William Thompson to Inceville.”

At this moment Miss Dalton’s automobile was brought around to the door, and hastily slipping on a hat and large, loose coat, she begged our pardon for leaving us, and explained prettily that she just had to hurry “somewhere.”

So we snap-shotted her as she was about to “fly along,” and waved good-by to a whirr of the engine and a fine cloud of dust and gasoline fumes.

To Miss Dalton’s monolog I wish to add a slight epilog, and that is that Dorothy Dalton has a brilliant future ahead of her — not only as a lovely ingénue, but as a character or emotional lead. Already she has demonstrated her versatility — as an ingénue in “The Vagabond Prince,” a vampire in “The Female of the Species,” a brilliant feminist in “The Weaker Sex.” She is no one-part actress. No role is too difficult or too different but what it can be conquered the determination of Dorothy Dalton. The public look forward to the second phase of her pictured career under the Lasky “overheads.”

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Three li’l pals together: — Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] — both at present working at Lasky studios in California recently sent Charlie [Charles Chaplin] a telegram that they would sue him for sore ribs after seeing one of his photoplays. That Charlie succeeded in changing their minds is evidenced in this picture

Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, November 1917

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Collection: Photoplay Magazine, August 1917