Dorothy
Gibson named Dorothy Winifred Brown at birth was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the daughter of
John A. and Pauline Brown. John Brown died when Dorothy was a child and
her mother married John Leonard Gibson.
Dorothy was a singer and dancer in a
number of musicals on Broadway in 1908. In
1909 she became a favorite model, her
image appearing on magazine covers and postcards for a while. In 1911, she was
hired by the French company Éclair, becoming a popular star in hit comedies and dramas. On March 17, 1912, having made multiple movies,
including "The Easter Bonnet,"
a romantic comedy, and a gangster movie called "The Revenge of the Silk Masks”, Dorothy sailed to Europe for a
vacation with her mother.
After a few weeks, Éclair adviser and producer, Jules Brulatour told her in Italy to return to complete a
new roll of movies. Dorothy was having an affair with Brulatour, who later divorced
his wife to marry her. Dorothy and her mother were in Paris when they booked
their return passage on the Titanic, which they boarded when the ship stopped
at Cherbourg on the evening of April 10th.
Dorothy told the New York
Dramatic Mirror that she "spent a pleasant Sunday evening playing bridge
with a couple of friendly New York bankers". Despite the requests of a steward to finish,
the friends carried on with their game. It was not until about 11.40 p.m. that
Dorothy made her way to join her mother in her room. She then noticed “a long
drawn, sickening crunch." She wasn't exactly alarmed but decided to investigate.
"As I started to walk across
the ship I noticed how lopsided the deck was." She hurried to fetch her
mother. According to Dorothy, lifeboat 7
was virtually empty when she and her mother arrived on the boat deck. After
being lowered into the water it looked as if her lifeboat would follow Titanic
to the bottom. Water gushed through a hole in the bottom until, in the words of
Dorothy "this was fixed by volunteer contributions from the underwear of
the women and the garments of men."'
"I will never forget the
terrible cry that rang out from people who were thrown into the sea ," she told the Moving Picture World.
Soon after the disaster, Dorothy acted in the first film ever produced about it, called "Saved from
the Titanic" (in which she basically played herself.) The movie was
released May 14, 1912, a month after the sinking. According to Eclair, Dorothy
was hesitant about reliving the disaster so quickly after the tragedy but "the beautiful young star conquered her own feeling and went ahead," as the Moving
Picture World wrote.
Dorothy made about 20 movies. Only
one of her films survives to this day. "The Lucky
Holdup," is now preserved by the American Film Institute. "The Lucky Holdup" premiered in New
York just as Dorothy set sail on the Titanic.
Mrs. Gibson died of heart
failure in her suite at the Hotel Ritz in Paris on February 11, 1946. She was single when she died.
-Adeola :p
