Dorothy Jordan (American actress)

Dorothy Jordan (August 9, 1906 – December 7, 1988) was an American movie actress who had a short but successful career beginning in talking pictures in 1929.

Early career

Born in Clarksville, Tennessee, Jordan studied at Southwestern University and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She performed in Broadway musicals, including Garrick Gaieties.

Jordan made her screen debut in the 1929 film The Taming of the Shrew and went on to make twenty-two more films in the next four years, including Min and Bill with Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler in 1930 and The Cabin in the Cotton with Bette Davis in 1932. During that time, she appeared in films with Ramon Novarro, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Huston and Jimmy Durante.

Film retirement and return

In 1933, Jordan left films and married filmmaker, screenwriter and later World War II U.S. Army Air Forces Colonel Merian C. Cooper, who co-wrote, produced and directed the 1933 film King Kong. The couple had three children, a son and two daughters. In 1937, she came out of her leave and tested for the role of Melanie Hamilton in Gone With The Wind. Cooper was a good friend and frequent collaborator with Western director John Ford, forming Argosy Productions in 1947. It was for Argosy's The Sun Shines Bright, directed by Ford in 1953, that Jordan came out of retirement for a small role. She then appeared in a small role as the sister-in-law of John Wayne's character, Ethan Edwards, who seeks Jordan's daughter, played by Natalie Wood, in the epic 1956 Argosy film The Searchers. Jordan appeared once more, in a small role in the John Ford film The Wings of Eagles in 1957 before retiring.

Later years

Jordan and Cooper lived in Coronado, California and remained married until his death of cancer on April 21, 1973. Jordan died of congestive heart failure on December 7, 1988 in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. Her body was cremated and her ashes are interred at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.

Filmography

Dorothy Jordan (right) with Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery in Min and Bill