1895-1977
Film worker Dorothy Davenport was born on this day in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter, and only child of, actors Harry Davenport and Alice Davenport (his first wife). Not only were her parents actors of the stage and screen, both of her paternal grandparents were also theatrical actors. This, of course, meant that young Dorothy would have literally never known life without acting and made it highly probable that she herself would at least try the profession, if not make a career of it. It is also of little surprise that Davenport got her start on the stage at an early age, making her professional debut at the age of just six. She continued to appear on the stage, mostly in vaudeville acts, throughout her teens while attending a boarding school in Virginia; and at just 16, she moved to California to pursue film acting, having already made her film debut the year before in the D.W. Griffith Biograph short A Mohawk's Way (1910). In point of fact, she acted in eleven Biograph films that year, most of them directed by Griffith. In 1911, she went to work for Reliance Film Company, with Vengeance Hath Been Had marking her first film for them. In late 1911, she moved over to Nestor Film, making The Best Man Wins written and directed by Tom Ricketts. The bulk of her films at Nestor were either directed by Ricketts or Al Christie; one that was not was His Only Son (October 1912) which was co-directed by Jack Conway and Milton Fahrney; a short western that counted one Wallace Reid among it's cast. He and Davenport would wed in October of the following year, after which she was often credited as "Mrs. Wallace Reid." In 1913, the pair left for Selig Polyscope, but continued to make the same sort of short films they had made at Nestor. By the end of the year, Reid was back at Nestor directing and he added his new wife to his cast of actors for shorts that he often wrote himself. The years between 1914 and 1918 were her most prolific when she appeared the lion's share of her nearly 150 acting credits. She also occasionally worked in features here and there, including: The Explorer (1915), Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo (1915), The Unknown (1915), Doctor Neighbor (1916), and The Way of the World (1916). By the middle of 1916, her roles in features increased; a couple of which (The Unattainable, Barriers of Society, The Devil's Bondwoman, etc.) she took top bill in. In 1917, she gave birth to her son and the event caused a slowing in the number of roles she accepted, eventually bringing on her full retirement after a second child--an adopted daughter--came into the family. Her last major film before the cessation of her career was the societal drama The Fighting Chance (August 1920) starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Conrad Nagel. Added to this was another serious issue that was not made public until much later. Her husband had been seriously injured in an a train accident in Oregon, the accident happened when he was filming and he was subsequently treated by studio physicians who pumped him full of morphine to which he became addicted. Many speculate that this was the real reason for her retirement in 1920. She did appear in a small role in a western in 1922, The Masked Avenger, which her son, Wallace Reid Jr., also had a small role in; but it would only be after the tragic death of her husband in 1923 that would see her return to the industry. It was at this time that she began insisting on credits be under her married name. After his death, she teamed upped with Thomas Ince to produce and star in Human Wreckage, a film about a wife battling the evils of drug addiction in a husband, with James Kirkwood starring as the husband. It was a deeply personal film for her, that she also shadow directed along with John Griffith Wray (it is also unfortunately not known to survive). She also was an uncredited writer on the project. This started a very short directors career for her, and an even longer writing career. She did have a couple of straight-forward acting jobs in the late 1920's, but the bulk of her remaining career was not to be in front of the camera. She did act in the 1924 nearly all female written melodrama Broken Laws in which she took the headline. In 1925, she shadow directed The Red Kimona with Walter Lang; and despite that her role in the film was small, the promotional materials had her name and likeness all over them. She again contributed some writing to the script, which was penned by Adela Rogers St. Johns and Dorothy Azner. In 1926 she solo produced her first film, The Earth Woman, under her new company Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions; the film was again directed by Lang. Her last acting role of the 1920's came in Hellship Bronson in 1928, a ship-board melodrama, in which she starred opposite Noah Beery. Her last film of the 1920's is in many ways her most significant of the decade. Linda, released in April of 1929, starred Helen Foster and Warner Baxter along with the above mentioned Noah Beery. The film was a full talkie that she directly produced through her own company; it was also her first solo directing job and the very first for which she recieved credit. She had just two more film roles in her career, in the 1933 and 1934, but she continued to write scripts well into the 1950's, even writing for television. In fact, it was a teleplay for "The Loretta Young Show" in 1958 (the 6th season episode Operation Snowball) that was her last career credit. She also worked prolifically as a dialog director. She retired and eventually wound up living at the Woodland Hills retirement home and hospital for motion picture and television workers in the 1970s. She passed away there on the 12th of October in 1977 at the age of 82. She was interred with her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.
[Source: Scott Michaels (Find a Grave)]
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