Dorothy Granger

'Dorothy Granger' (qv) was one of the first members of SAG when the Screen Actors Guild was founded over 65 years ago. A Texas beauty contest winner at the age of thirteen, Dorothy's career ran from a long-running two-reel series, as the wife of 'Leon Errol' (qv) for RKO, to the long-running television series _Im wilden Westen (1952)_ (qv) with Ronald Reagan. 'Dott-ee,' as Stan Laurel would call her, worked as a young foil with Laurel and Hardy, a damsel-in-distress for the Three Stooges, and a prop for Lucille Ball to pop in _Perfectly Mismated (1934)_ (qv). From one short comedy to another, she worked with every popular comic or comedy team of the twenties and thirties, from Burt Wheeler to W.C. Fields. But Dorothy wanted to be a dramatic actress. She appealed to her funny buddy Andy Devine, who told her, "Put on a petticoat and you'll work forever." She did, and she did. In the forties, it was western after western, working with Lon Chaney Jr. and Andy in _North to the Klondike (1942)_ (qv), Randolph Scott and Broderick Crawford in _When the Daltons Rode (1940)_ (qv), Robert Young and Betty Grable in _Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943)_ (qv), and Gene Autry in _Blue Montana Skies (1939)_ (qv). Tiring of westerns, Dorothy ventured into everything from horrors with Bela Lugosi to musicals to the Charlie Chan series with Sydney Toler. By the fifties, she'd hit her stride, working episodic TV, regularly on _The Abbott and Costello Show (1952)_ (qv), _Cameo Theatre (1950)_ (qv) with James Drury, and _The Jack Benny Program (1950)_ (qv). But like the westerns, Dorothy's style had passed, reducing her to bit roles in films like _Dondi (1961)_ (qv) with Walter Winchell and David Janssen, _New York Confidential (1955)_ (qv) with Anne Bancroft, and _Raintree County (1957)_ (qv) with Montgomery Clift. Andy was right-the petticoat was the most natural wardrobe for Dorothy, since she spent most of her career in petticoats and covered wagons. Dorothy accepted that the West was done. Ending her career with over 250 films, she quit. The three most enjoyable things for Dorothy were making movies, her affair with Clark Gable, and watching her grandnephew, Alex Wilde, grow as an actor.::"Pierre Patrick"