Silver Screen (Nov 1930-Oct 1931)

By John Byron She Packs A Wallop Dorothy Lee Has Muscled Her Way Into Stardom DOROTHY LEE just reaches the five foot mark, but she picked up a football and booted it to the roof of one of the sound stages on the Radio Pictures lor. Howard Jones, who turns out championship football teams at the University of Southern California, scratched his head in puzzled wonder. He might have said something that would have expressed his astonishment, but then there was a lady present. Old-fashioned courtesy does pop up once in a while, even in Hollywood. Booting the stuffin' out of a pigskin is just the beginning of Dorothy Lee's accomplishments. There is more energy in that small, dainty package than in a truck-load of dynamite. Lm convinced that Dorothy could start the day in company with six strapping fellows, and by noon an ambulance would be carting them off to a rest home. Dorothy would just be getting "warmed up" and complaining of the lack of exercise. If she puts half as much energy in her motion picture career that she does in her athletic pursuits she will be the greatest star on the screen. I'd like to see Ruth Chatterton boot a football. When Dorothy finished "Assorted Nuts" in support of those funny fellows, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, her doctor informed her that her appendix should be removed. He told her if she went away and had a complete rest for two weeks the operation might possibly be avoided. I saw Dorothy when she had returned from Palm Springs, and the rest cure. for April 1931 She's a gay deceiver, little Dorothy Lee. She looks young and weak. She's actually five feet and ninety pounds of concentrated dynamite — and does she get what she wants, does she.' Ask RKO who's starring her "Well," I began, "did you have a nice rest?" "Oh, it was all right," she answered. "I rode horseback, and played tennis and golf for four days. It was pretty dull, though, so I came home." And that, as a preventative for an attack of appendicitis, is as original a treatment as one can imagine. However, the appendix is still an integral part of Dorothy, and not among her doctor's souvenirs. This small, and anything but ineffectual, youngster of nineteen is one of the few stars claiming Los Angeles as the home town. She is an only child, and her playmates were all boys. She had to make good at those rough and ready games of male adolescents or stay at home and twiddle her thumbs. And she didn't care about thumb-twiddling. When she was entering her 'teens she was able to chin herself goodness knows how many times; she could climb trees like Ingagi, "skin-thecat," throw a baseball as well as any boy, and run like Charley Paddock. I don't know, but maybe she could even spit through her teeth. Do you suppose for a moment that Greta Garbo or Norma Shearer could do any of those things? There are marks remaining from that active childhood. Once, while she was "skinning-the-cat," she fell on her nose. The fall not only altered the shape of that member (it's really most provocative now), but she has a bump on her tongue as well. She likes tennis, golf, swimming, riding, hiking and dancing, but her favorite sport is lacrosse. There is nothing pink-tea about lacrosse, and Dorothy was once a member of a championship team. She still has the newspaper stories, with a picture of one of the games. You can't see Dorothy very plainly, since some hefty damsel appears to have sat down for a good rest. There's nothing wrong in that, only she seems to be sitting on Dorothy. However, Dorothy was tlic star of the team according to [Continued on pa^e 55] 17