Dorothy Sebastian
Dorothy Sebastian (born Stella Dorothy Sabiston April 26, 1903 in Birmingham, died April 8, 1957 in Los Angeles, California) was a Ziegfeld Girl and silent film actress who starred with Joan Crawford and Anita Page in a series of MGM romantic dramas including Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Our Modern Maidens (1929) and Our Blushing Brides (1930).
Dorothy was born in Birmingham to Lycurgus Robert and Stella Armstrong Sabiston, who had served together as missionaries with his parents in China. She had three sisters and a brother. Dorothy and her mother ran a small shop where they sold portrait sketches and needlepoint.
Dorothy enrolled at the University of Alabama. On November 9, 1920 she eloped with her high school sweetheart Allen Stafford, son of the owners of the White Swan Laundry. They couple lived in Birmingham before divorcing in 1924. Shortly after she moved to New York City to work as a dancer, joining the chorus of "George White's Scandals" at a rate of $55 per week. Through that position she came into contact with British newspaper publisher Maxwell Aitken. Through his influence she was granted a screen test with Paramount producer Henry King, landing a starring role in his 1925 silent Western "Sackcloth and Scarlet". That role secured her a 5-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
In 1928 Sebastian was engaged to director Clarence Brown, who had divorced earlier that year. They met when he showed up at her apartment to listen to the Dempsey-Sharkey fight on the radio. The engagement was broken off when she started seeing Buster Keaton during his unhappy marriage to Natalie Talmadge. She co-starred with Keaton in his 1929 film Spite Marriage. She and Joan Crawford became life-long friends during that period. In 1930 when her MGM contract term ended, Sebastian's request for a higher salary was rejected.
On December 19 of that year Sebastian flew to Las Vegas to marry newly-divorced Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd, whom she had met while filming His First Command (1929) and Officer O'Brien (1930). During the six years of their marriage she did not work in films.
After their divorce in 1936, Sebastian reconnected with Keaton and earned a reputation for drinking to excess. She was convicted of driving under the influence in 1937, but given a suspended sentence with probation. During World War II she was employed as an x-ray technician at a defense plant, while also taking a series of smaller film roles. In 1946 she was married a third time, to aircraft technician Herman Shapiro. They moved to Miami Beach, Florida where the owned and operated the Henrosa Hotel.
Sebastian died of cancer in 1957 while residing at the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
References
- Gwaltney, Caroline (Spring 2008) "You Ought to Be in Pictures" Alabama Alumni Magazine. No. 88
- Fair, John D. (March 22, 2021) "Dorothy Sebastian. Encyclopedia of Alabama - accessed May 2, 2022
External links
- Dorothy Sebastian fan site with extensive archive
- Dorothy Sebastian at IMDB.com