Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith

Dorothy Gladys Smith (1896-1990), or Dodie Smith as she is more commonly known, was a Manchester-born novelist and playwright, best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Born on 3 May 1896, she spent the first years of her life living in Whitefield, Manchester until the death of her father, Ernest Smith, in 1898. She then moved to Kingston House, Old Trafford, which was situated by the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal until it was demolished in 1905. She finally settled at Thorncliffe, Old Trafford, which still stands today at 609 Stretford Road. Adorned with her blue plaque, it quotes Dodie’s description of the road during her early years of living there; “so quiet and semi-rural that the corncrake could still be heard.” Now used as a major route into the city centre, this is a very different description to the Stretford Road we know today.

609 Stretford Road, courtesy of L. Kenna.jpg

609 Stretford Road, 2021. Courtesy of L. Kenna.

Her first autobiography, Look Back With Love: A Manchester Childhood (1974) gifts us with many of her personal accounts of the industrial and geographical changes to Old Trafford and its surrounding areas, such as the move from horse-drawn trams to electric trams in 1907; “Thorncliffe, unlike most Old Trafford houses, was stuccoed and painted cream. It was not impressive from the outside as the front door was tucked away at the side and the front garden so shallow that the electric trams, which had replaced the old horse drawn trams, were unpleasingly close. Still, I found their goings-on interesting. Their points were changed almost opposite to us, where the two roads met, and their trolley poles were swung from wire to wire, resulting in surprising electric sparks. But their clanging gongs had none of the charm of the clop of horses’ hooves.”

 

She also describes when “the beautiful Botanical Gardens had been turned into an amusement park called the White City" and her disappointing visit there:

“We all went on the opening day and were shocked by the changes. The cave, the grottoes, the lawns and the hot-houses were gone. I could find no trace of Monkey Hill nor of the lakes where I had fished. The sunken flower garden had been flooded to receive the water-shoot and there were cheap restaurants and entertainment booths all over the place; also as the crowds increased, a nasty smell. The scenic railway was supposed to outswitch all switchbacks, but didn’t and it cost sixpence; indeed all the amusements were so expensive that Uncle Eddie said he was surprised there was no charge for coming out. The old concert hall had been turned into a roller-skating rink which was one innovation my mother and I approved of.”

However, it seems it was at Thorncliffe living alongside her extended family; her mother, her grandparents, two aunts and three uncles, that encouraged her growing interest in the arts. Her mother, Ella Furber, was an aspiring actress, her uncle Harold Furber; a keen amateur actor, and her grandparents; William and Margaret Furber were keen theatre-goers, who Dodie often enjoyed having discussions about playwrights with. This inspired her passion for writing plays and acting; writing her first play at ten years old and joining the Manchester Athenaeum Dramatic Society in her teenage years. She recalls being cast in the lead role of Sleeping Beauty and performing at the Old Trafford Technical Institute (now the Fo Guang Shan Manchester Temple on Stretford Road) and describes watching Miss Hornimans' Company production of David Ballard by Charles McEvoy at the Midland Hotel in Manchester as “one of the landmarks of her life.” Interestingly, it was during these trips to the theatre that she first crossed paths with then actor – future director Basil Dean, who would later buy and direct her first staged play, Autumn Crocus (1931) over twenty years later.

In 1907, she moved to Whalley Range, describing a walk she had taken from her old Old Trafford house to her new Whalley Range residence along the “still-pleasant Seymour Grove" and detailing her sadness about leaving Old Trafford. She also attended Whalley Range High School for Girls for the next three years, until at age fourteen when she moved to London when her mother remarried. She went on to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) where she won several acting roles, including a stint with a company entertaining troops during the First World War. Initially she wrote under male pseudonyms, C.L. Anthony and Charles Henry Percy, and acquired some success. However, Dodie caused quite a stir when her true identity was revealed. Headlines in local newspapers spoke of her as “Shop Girl Writes Play” because at the time she was also working in London retail store, Heals.

In 1939, she married fellow Heals employee, Alec Macbeth Beesley, who became her business manager and they moved to America in the 1940s to escape the war. Here she was met with success, forging friendships with fellow writers Christopher Isherwood, Charles Brackett and John Van Druten, and earning money writing Hollywood screenplays. However, despite her success, she missed home terribly. It was during this time that she also began working on her first novel, I Capture the Castle (1948); a love letter to growing up, writing and England. Many will be familiar with its famous first line, I write this sitting in the kitchen sinkand it has since been adapted to film.

TLC Dodie Smith books.JPG

A selection of reference books authored by Dodie Smith, held at the Trafford Local Studies Centre. Trafford Local Studies collection.

Dodie and her husband returned to England in the 1950s, much to her delight, settling in Stambourne, Essex. It was here where she wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) where inspiration was found for the character of Cruella De Vil in the form of a passing comment from a friend about her beloved Dalmatians; “Those dogs would make a lovely fur coat!

In fact, she sought much inspiration from her family life, most notably naming the four-legged main character after her own beloved Dalmatian, Pongo. “I found an ink drawing I did of a Dalmatian... I remembered he was to have been the hero of a story about Pongo, the famous dog detective. It was seventeen years later that Pongo became the hero of The Hundred and One Dalmatians.” The scene where Mr. Dearly revives a still-born puppy was also based on a similar occurrence where her husband revived a still-born puppy from real-life Pongo's litter.

In 1961, the novel was adapted by Disney into the much-loved animated classic, One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Her favourite frame in the film was that of Pongo stretching out in front of the window at the beginning of the film, which Walt Disney sent to her as a thank you. Dodie wrote its lesser-known sequel, The Starlight Barking in 1967.

Dodie continued writing in the 1970s and 1980s, sadly passing away at the age of 94 in 1990. She has left behind a great legacy in the arts where she had found success as a novelist, a playwright, a screenplay writer and an actress. Her complete works include eleven plays, nine novels, four autobiographies and two screenplays. To this day, her work continues to inspire with the release of the new Disney film, Cruella, a prequel to The Hundred and One Dalmatians inspired by Cruella De Vil, as well as recently having a new street in Stretford, ‘Dodie Smith Walk', named in her honour.

Researched and written by Trafford Local Studies volunteer Lauren Kenna 

Sources

Smith, Dodie, Look Back With Love: A Manchester Childhood, (London: Heinemann, 1974) 

Smith, Dodie, Look Back With Mixed Feelings, (London: W.H. Allen,1978)

Smith, Dodie, Look Back With Astonishment, (London: W.H. Allen, 1979) 

Smith, Dodie, Look Back with Gratitude, (London: Muller, 1985) 

'Honour for Dalmatians' Dodie', Manchester Evening News, 12 September 2002

Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith