A forgotten Hull movie star, said to be the first British actress to successfully conquer Tinseltown, is set to take centre stage again, this time in a musical tribute in East Yorkshire.
Dorothy Mackaill, who died in 1990, went from performing as a child in the dancehalls of Hull to become the darling of Hollywood in the Twenties and Thirties, playing alongside the likes of Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.
Her remarkable life story is being told in a new musical at Beverley’s East Riding Theatre, written by Elizabeth Godber and produced by the John Godber Company, which explores Dorothy’s life, her fame, her struggles, and her East Yorkshire roots.
Running from 27 September to 14 October 2023, The Remarkable Tale of Dorothy Mackaill features music from the 1920s and 1930s and an East Yorkshire cast, including West End actress May Tether.
The jazzy new musical tells the story of how Dorothy, who was born in Hull in 1903, reputedly became the highest-paid star in the world at the time.
After leaving the city aged 17 years, Dorothy moved to London and then Paris and became part of the famous Zeigfield Follies in New York before Hollywood discovered her.
While she didn’t become famous for three years until The Man Who Came Back in 1924 during the silent era, she went on to appear in a host of movies and continued into the beginning of the sound era, starring alongside Gable in No Man of Her Own (1932) and Bogart in Love Affair (1932).
From her humble Hull roots, she was one of the most recognisable and bankable actors of Hollywood’s silent film era and after marrying three times she eventually retired to live in Hawaii, where she died aged 87.
Apart from a blue plaque outside her old school, Thoresby Primary, much of Mackaill’s legacy has been forgotten in her home city, but the new play – written with help from Dorothy’s surviving family who still live in Hull – aims to throw the spotlight back on her remarkable life.
Tickets, costing £20 per person, are available at www.eastridingtheatre.co.uk/the-remarkable-tale-of-dorothy-mackaill/
For tourism information about visiting, and staying in, Hull and East Yorkshire, see www.visithull.org and www.visiteastyorkshire.co.uk
Photos: East Riding Theatre
