Dorothy Appleby

Dorothy Appleby

Born: January 6, 1906
Died: August 9, 1990
in Portland, Maine, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dorothy Appleby (January 6, 1906 – August 9, 1990) was an American film actress. She appeared in over 50 films between 1931 and 1943. Appleby gained early acting experience as an understudy and a chorus member in plays in New York City. A newspaper article reported that Appleby "came to New York fresh from winning a Maine beauty contest."

Appleby was seen in many supporting roles, almost always in short subjects or low-budget feature films. She never progressed to leading roles in important pictures because of her height, which made her difficult to cast The trim brunette stood just over five feet tall, and her early leading men (like comedian Charley Chase) towered over her.

She soon found steady if not prestigious work in Columbia Pictures' two-reel comedies. She appeared frequently with The Three Stooges, who were only a few inches taller than she was, and in 1940 she became Buster Keaton's leading lady, for the same reason: her height complemented his. She worked with Columbia comics Andy Clyde, El Brendel, and Hugh Herbert, and she had an uncredited part in John Ford's Stagecoach.

Some of her Stooge comedies were Loco Boy Makes Good, So Long Mr. Chumps, and In the Sweet Pie and Pie. One memorable appearance was as Mexican brunette Rosita in 1940's Cookoo Cavaliers. In the film, Appleby gets clobbered by the Stooges when a facial "mud pack" made of cement dries on her face. Her petite figure belied her age, and she continued to play "younger" roles into the 1940s. One of her last screen roles was a one-line bit (playing a college co-ed at age 35) in the 1941 Jane Withers feature Small Town Deb.

Movies for Dorothy Appleby...

Pitchin' in the Kitchen
Title: Pitchin' in the Kitchen
Character: Dagmar Spiggott, the wife
Released: September 10, 1943
Type: Movie
While his wife works at a defense plant, Hugh stays home and tries to do the housework.
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What's the Matador?
Title: What's the Matador?
Character: O'Brien's Secretary
Released: April 23, 1942
Type: Movie
The stooges are actors traveling to perform at a fiesta in Mexico. After they accidentally switch suitcases with that of Dolores, a lovely senorita they met on trip down, they must sneak into her house to retrieve their suitcase. When they are confronted by her jealous husband he vows to kill them if he sees them again. At the fiesta where they are performing a comedy bullfight (Curly is the matador, Moe and Larry are in a bull costume) the husband bribes the attendants to let a real bull into the ring. Curly knocks the bull out with a head butt and becomes a hero.
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What Makes Lizzy Dizzy?
Title: What Makes Lizzy Dizzy?
Character: Aggie
Released: March 26, 1942
Type: Movie
This Columbia short (production number 3431) has Harry Langdon and Elsie Ames billed above the title, but it is all Elsie Ames with Langdon and Monty Collins (if his name is Monte, how come---except for typos--- he is always billed as Monty?) only around to get a bowling ball bounced off the top of their collective heads, plus a couple of unfunny sight gags. Langdon, while top-billed, also played second-fiddle to the pratfalls of Elsie Ames in "Carry Harry" and even soon found himself billed second to Una Merkel---yes, that Una Merkel--- in Columbia's 1944-short "To Heir Is Human." Lizzy and her friend Aggie are toiling in Kelley's Laundry in order to get enough money to marry their boy friends Harry and Bill, and soon find themselves as a two-woman company bowling team attempting to keep Mr. Kelley from losing a $1000 bet. Things happen. Some of them funny.
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Loco Boy Makes Good
Title: Loco Boy Makes Good
Character: Twitchell's Girl
Released: January 8, 1942
Type: Movie
The stooges decide to get some easy money by having Curly slip on a bar of soap in a hotel lobby so they can sue the owner. Curly slips as planned but the hotel turns out to be run by an old lady who is about to lose her lease to the evil landlord. The stooges decide to help her fix up the place and start by beating up the landlord and stealing his watch. After their usual antics in renovating the place, the hotel is ready for the grand re-opening. The stooges put on a big show with a famous critic in attendance. Their corny act goes over poorly until Curly accidentally puts on a magicians coat and becomes a sensation and the place is a success.
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In the Sweet Pie and Pie
Title: In the Sweet Pie and Pie
Character: Tiska Jones
Released: October 16, 1941
Type: Movie
The Stooges are convicts about to be executed for some murders they didn't commit. The day before the execution they are tricked into marrying three rich girls who need husbands to collect a legacy. At the last minute the real murderers confess and the stooges are pardoned. The girls are now stuck with the Stooges so they plot to get rid of them by making them become gentlemen. The girl's lawyer convinces them to throw a big party in the hope that the Stooges will humiliate them and they can get a divorce. The boys do just that as the party degenerates into a wild pie fight. But the girls decide to keep the stooges and give their lawyer the boot.
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General Nuisance
Title: General Nuisance
Character: Dorothy - Army nurse
Released: September 18, 1941
Type: Movie
A millionaire falls for an army nurse, who tells him she likes men in uniform. So he enlists at Camp Cluster. She still has no time for him, so he figures out how to get into the hospital and under her care.
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Manpower
Title: Manpower
Character: Wilma
Released: August 9, 1941
Type: Movie
Hank McHenry and Johnny Marshall work as power company linesmen. Hank is injured in an accident and subsequently promoted to foreman of the gang. Tensions start to show in the road crew as rivalry between Hank and Johnny increases.
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Black Eyes and Blues
Title: Black Eyes and Blues
Character: Helen Potts Harmon
Released: April 18, 1941
Type: Movie
Roscoe's wife decides to divorce him and heads for Reno.
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So Long Mr. Chumps
Title: So Long Mr. Chumps
Character: Pomeroy's Girlfriend (uncredited)
Released: February 7, 1941
Type: Movie
The stooges are street cleaners who find some valuable bonds and return them to their owner. The man is so grateful that he offers them a big reward if they can find an honest man with executive ability. Their search leads them to a woman who's fiancée is honest, but he's in jail. The boys decide to commit a crime so they can go behind bars to find him. In prison the boys locate the man and help him escape, only to find out that their benefactor is a con man and on the way himself to the slammer.
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High Sierra
Title: High Sierra
Character: Margie (uncredited)
Released: January 23, 1941
Type: Movie
Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.
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His Ex Marks the Spot
Title: His Ex Marks the Spot
Character: His wife
Released: December 13, 1940
Type: Movie
Buster's home life is disrupted when his ex-wife and her boyfriend move in.
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Cookoo Cavaliers
Title: Cookoo Cavaliers
Character: Rosita (uncredited)
Released: November 15, 1940
Type: Movie
The stooges are three fish peddlers who, looking for a new business opportunity, open a beauty salon south of the border. Their first customers are some chorus girls from a local night club. After the stooges completely ruin the girls' hair, and their manager finds out, the boys must leave on the run.
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The Devil's Pipeline
Title: The Devil's Pipeline
Character: Stewardess
Released: October 31, 1940
Type: Movie
A secretary sends a coded plea for help in her monthly report; two detectives investigate and find out that men are jailed on phony charges, forced to work in oil fields and then murdered if they try to escape.
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The Spook Speaks
Title: The Spook Speaks
Character: Newlywed wife
Released: September 20, 1940
Type: Movie
A magician hires Buster as a housekeeper while he's away.
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From Nurse to Worse
Title: From Nurse to Worse
Character: Dr. Lerious' Receptionist (uncredited)
Released: August 23, 1940
Type: Movie
The stooge's friend Jerry convinces them to take out on insurance on Curly and then have him act insane to collect. Moe and Larry put Curly on a leash and take him to the insurance doctor and have him act like a dog. Unfortunately, the insurance doctor wants to perform a brain operation (Cerebrum decapitation). The boys try to escape by hiding in the dog catchers wagon, but are caught and taken to the hospital. They escape again, this time by rigging a sheet to a gurney and sailing down the street, where they run into Jerry and knock him into wet cement.
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Gold Rush Maisie
Title: Gold Rush Maisie
Character: Hatcheck Girl (Uncredited)
Released: July 26, 1940
Type: Movie
Maisie becomes attached to a dirt-poor farmer and his family as they try to make ends meet joining hundreds of others digging for gold in a previously panned-out ghost town.
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The Taming of the Snood
Title: The Taming of the Snood
Character: Miss Wilson
Released: June 28, 1940
Type: Movie
A jewel thief uses Buster as an unsuspecting dupe.
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The Doctor Takes a Wife
Title: The Doctor Takes a Wife
Character: Woman in Book Store
Released: April 25, 1940
Type: Movie
A best-selling author of women's issues and a medical academic find it is to their mutual advantage to falsely claim that they are married.
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Pardon My Berth Marks
Title: Pardon My Berth Marks
Character: Mary Crissman
Released: March 22, 1940
Type: Movie
Buster, a reporter, takes a train trip and winds up innocently involved with a gangster's wife.
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Rockin' Thru the Rockies
Title: Rockin' Thru the Rockies
Character: Tessie
Released: March 8, 1940
Type: Movie
The stooges are frontier guides leading a minstrel show west. When hostile Indians run the horses run off they are stranded. They must contend with a snow storm and a marauding bear as well the Indians. After almost killing each other ice fishing they solve their problems by rigging up a sail on the wagon and sailing west.
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Convicted Woman
Title: Convicted Woman
Character: Daisy
Released: January 31, 1940
Type: Movie
A reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.
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Nothing But Pleasure
Title: Nothing But Pleasure
Character: Mrs. Plunkett
Released: January 19, 1940
Type: Movie
To save money, Buster and his wife decide to drive to Detroit to buy a new car, then drive it home.
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The Women
Title: The Women
Character: Treatment Girl (uncredited)
Released: September 1, 1939
Type: Movie
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
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The Flying Irishman
Title: The Flying Irishman
Character: Maybelle
Released: April 7, 1939
Type: Movie
This is the story of the historic 1938 flight of Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan. Mr. Corrigan starred in this film, which chronicled his infamous flight. On July 17, 1938, Mr. Corrigan loaded 320 gallons of gasoline (40 hours worth) into the tiny, single engine plane. While expressing his intent to fly west to Long Beach, CA, Mr. Corrigan flew out of Floyd Bennett Field heading east over the Atlantic. Instrumentation in the plane included two compasses (both malfunctioned) and a turn-and-bank indicator. The cabin door was held shut with baling wire. Nearly 29 hours later, he landed in Baldonnel near Dublin. He forever claimed to be surprised at arriving in Ireland rather than California. He returned to the US as a hero, with a ticker tape parade in New York and received numerous medals and awards.
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Stagecoach
Title: Stagecoach
Character: Girl in Saloon (uncredited)
Released: March 3, 1939
Type: Movie
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the process.
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Making the Headlines
Title: Making the Headlines
Character: Claire Sandford
Released: March 31, 1938
Type: Movie
Angry, because he is making too many headlines with his gang-busting activities, the police chief transfers Lt. Lewis Nagel to the sleepy suburban town of Fairview, where he is followed by reporter Steve Withers because he knows Nagel will find a story.
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Live, Love and Learn
Title: Live, Love and Learn
Character: Lou - Bob's Model (uncredited)
Released: October 29, 1937
Type: Movie
A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love on first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange room-mate and the best apartment poverty can buy.
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Small Town Boy
Title: Small Town Boy
Character: Sandra French
Released: September 24, 1937
Type: Movie
Henry Armstrong was past being a spring chicken, still believes in Santa Claus and the maxim that "honesty is the best policy", but lack of money keeps him from marrying Molly and buying a little home, and his is threatened with the loss of the petty job he has had for four years with old Curtis French, Molly's uncle, because he can not sell enough insurance policies. And, then, he finds a thousand dollar bill. His honesty makes him advertise the find, but no one claims the money. When he is convinced that the owner will not turn up and that the money is his to keep, he becomes a changed, more aggressive and self-confident person. He begins to make sales as fast as he can make the pitch and he insists that he and Molly be married at once. While getting dressed for the ceremony, he places the $1000 bill in one of his father's old suits, and Pa Armstrong, trying to raise money to buy his son a wedding present, sells the suit to a passing junk man.
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Make a Wish
Title: Make a Wish
Character: Telephone Girl
Released: September 1, 1937
Type: Movie
While vacationing at a boys' camp, the rambunctious Chip Winters befriends a famed composer Johnny Selden. Stuck for an inspiration for his latest operetta, Selden at last finds it when he meets Chip's gorgeous mother Irene Winters, a popular singer. Alas, her stiff-necked fiancé Walter Mays refuses to allow her to return to the stage, whereupon Rathbone spirals into a depression -- and even worse, a profound case of writers' block.
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Paradise Express
Title: Paradise Express
Character: Kay Carson
Released: February 24, 1937
Type: Movie
A small railroad is being squeezed out of business by the tactics of a trucking company owned by gangsters.
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North of Nome
Title: North of Nome
Character: Ruby
Released: November 14, 1936
Type: Movie
John Raglan is a seal hunter being hounded by hijackers, so he strands himself on an isolated island in the Bering Sea that is owned by a corporation. During a fierce sea-storm, Raglan rescues the passengers of a floundering ship, which includes the owner of the island, his daughter and her fiancée. The owner threatens to charge Ragland with poaching on private property, and then a gang of seal-skin thieves make an entrance.
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Riffraff
Title: Riffraff
Character: Gertie
Released: January 3, 1936
Type: Movie
Fisherman Dutch marries cannery worker Hattie. After he is kicked out of his union and fired from his job he leaves Hattie who steals money for him and goes to jail. He gets a new job, foils a plot to dynamite the ship, and promises to wait for Hattie.
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Let 'em Have It
Title: Let 'em Have It
Character: Lola McArdle
Released: May 15, 1935
Type: Movie
Let 'Em Have It is a 1935 gangster film. It was also known as The Legion of Valour and False Faces. An FBI agent tracks down a gang leader.
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Charlie Chan in Paris
Title: Charlie Chan in Paris
Character: Nardi
Released: January 21, 1935
Type: Movie
Charlie's visit to Paris, ostensibly a vacation, is really a mission to investigate a bond-forgery racket. But his agent, apache dancer Nardi is killed before she can tell him much. The case, complicated by a false murder accusation for banker's daughter Yvette, climaxes with a strange journey through the Paris sewers.
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Fate's Fathead
Title: Fate's Fathead
Character: Dorothy Chase
Released: November 17, 1934
Type: Movie
Accidental meetings and misconceptions lead a blissfully happy couple to fight and squabble.
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You Said a Hatful!
Title: You Said a Hatful!
Character: Dorothy
Released: October 13, 1934
Type: Movie
When he learns the secret news that it will be sold today at 4pm in Kansas City, international banker J.P. Anderson sets in motion a plan to purchase the Tippycanoe Tuckahoe & Tehachapi Railroad.
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Two Heads on a Pillow
Title: Two Heads on a Pillow
Character: Mitzie LaVerne
Released: October 2, 1934
Type: Movie
A lawyer handing a divorce case discovers the attorney for the opposition is his ex-wife.
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I Give My Love
Title: I Give My Love
Character: Alice Henley
Released: July 17, 1934
Type: Movie
After accidentally killing her no-good husband, Judy makes her true love promise not to tell her small son about his imprisoned mother. She is released ten years later...
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School for Girls
Title: School for Girls
Character: Florence Burns
Released: March 22, 1934
Type: Movie
After being convicted of stealing some jewels, Annette Eldrige is sent to a reformatory administered by a sadistic and corrupt female warder. However, one of the board of trustees takes an interest in the new arrival and begins to investigate the management of the institution.
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Jail Birds of Paradise
Title: Jail Birds of Paradise
Character: Miss Deering, Prison Warder
Released: March 10, 1934
Type: Movie
While the warden is away, his daughter attempts to turn prison into 'Paradise" Considered a Lost Film.
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As the Earth Turns
Title: As the Earth Turns
Character: Doris
Released: February 14, 1934
Type: Movie
Love happens between the son of Polish immigrants settled in Maine and the daughter of a neighboring farm family.
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King of the Wild Horses
Title: King of the Wild Horses
Character: Napeeta
Released: November 10, 1933
Type: Movie
Columbia's King of the Wild Horses is a remake of the silent Hal Roach western feature of the same name -- and with the same "star," Rex the Wonder Horse, in the lead. Most of the story involves the romantic triangle between rogue stallion Rex, the gorgeous mare Lady, and villainous black steed Marquis.
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Trick for Trick
Title: Trick for Trick
Character: Maisie Henry
Released: April 20, 1933
Type: Movie
A magician is accused of killing his female assistant.
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Under Eighteen
Title: Under Eighteen
Character: Elsie
Released: January 2, 1932
Type: Movie
Working girl Margie Evans has decided there are two kinds of opportunities for a slum kid during the Depression: Those you make and those you take. Determined to help her family out of its financial bind, she is ready to do both after she shows up at the penthouse pool bash of a wealthy playboy.