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BY KIRTLEY BASKETTE
for the amateurs, Dottie, to her mother's horror, bounced right up on the stage, improvised a Pavlova ballet and won first prize — a crate of cantaloupes. The tragedy was — Mrs. Comingore wouldn't let her keep the cantaloupes! From that time right up to the coming of Welles everyj thing connected with show business had handed Dorothy a push in the mush, one way or another. There have been times when she wished she'd followed her childhood yearning to be a Carmelite nun. Times, too, when Dorothy wished she'd stayed in the University of California and collected a degree in philosophy of religion, as she started out to do.
Instead Dorothy listened to the Red Gods calling and ditched the Berkeley campus for Taos, New Mexico. "I don't know why exactly," said Dorothy, "except that I'd read D. H. Lawrence." Every lady in Taos is supposed to have been the great English writer's dream girl, and maybe the lure of getting the lowdown on great love affairs was what did it. Instead of cutting a gay figure in | the world of art and letters, however, Dorothy ended with a job dusting off relics in the Kit Carson museum there and odd jobbing around the plaza. But she got in on the fringe of dramatics and absorbed some art and a great deal of independence and courage, also the capacity to five on air, which is a good thing for a prospective actress to learn. There were times when people had to take up collections to keep the Comingore soul and body on speaking terms.
The next stop on Dorothy's dash to destiny was a place called Downieville, California. It's up in the old FortyNiner gold rush country away from practically everywhere. Why did she go there? "Have you ever been to Downieville?" inquired Dorothy. "Well — it's so pretty. Little houses hang on hillsides and things. I worked in a restaurant waiting tables. In the evenings I fooled around high school plays."
The combination of career and cooking worked in Carmel, which is pretty, too, where Dorothy blithely rattled as soon as she could collect enough tips to buy an ancient flivver. Carmel has a Little Theatre that's fairly famous and which was practically the big time to Comingore after Taos and Downieville. But nobody saw any reason to make her a star even there. They let her sew costumes, though, and fool around the wings while she earned her board and keep at a dude ranch in the Carmel Valley. "Then the cook left," sighed Dorothy, "and they put the apron on me. The ranch had a reputation for wonderful homemade bread, and I'd never baked a loaf in my life. I didn't work there very long."
Dorothy thinks the less said about her efforts to eat in artistic Carmel, the better. She dwelt in leaky shanties and never saw a pair of silk stockings. To support herself, her two cats and sheepdog, she (Continued on page 88)
august, 1941
YOU CAN'T KNOCK BLIND DATES TO DOROTHY COMINGORE! SHE HAD ONE WITH ORSON WELLES, AND IT TURNED OUT TO BE A DATE WITH DESTINY
Daughter Judith Melinda is six months old, with bright red hair and huge blue eyes. Her mom, who's Mrs. Richard Collins around the house, will be twenty-six on August 24.
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