Dorothy Appleby

Acting

Dorothy Appleby

Born 1906-01-06 · 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.

Acting credits

Stagecoach poster
7.6

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.

Stagecoach

1939

What's the Matador? poster
6.3

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.

What's the Matador?

1942

High Sierra poster
7.1

Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.

High Sierra

1941

The Women poster
7.2

A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.

The Women

1939

When Tomorrow Comes poster
5.4

A waitress destined for a better life falls in love with a handsome stranger, only to find that he is already married.

When Tomorrow Comes

1939

Manpower poster
6.5

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.

Manpower

1941

In the Sweet Pie and Pie poster
7.1

The Stooges are convicts about to be executed for some murders they didn't commit.

In the Sweet Pie and Pie

1941

The Doctor Takes a Wife poster
6.8

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.

The Doctor Takes a Wife

1940

Pitchin' in the Kitchen poster
7.0

While his wife works at a defense plant, Hugh stays home and tries to do the housework.

Pitchin' in the Kitchen

1943

Loco Boy Makes Good poster
6.2

After being thrown out of their apartment, the Stooges try a scam to get some money: find a hotel, slip on a cake of soap, and sue the owners to get a huge settlement. In their attempts they come across an old lady who is on the brink of losing her hotel if she doesn't pay the interest on her note. Taking pity on her, they immediately start fixing up the place, turn it into a swanky nightclub, and go all out to impress important columnist Waldo Twitchell on opening night.

Loco Boy Makes Good

1942

Live, Love and Learn poster
5.6

A starving, uncompromising artist and an heiress fall in love at first sight and immediately get married. She loves his outrageous behaviour, his strange roommate, and the best apartment poverty can buy.

Live, Love and Learn

1937

No artwork available
8.0

Two former crooks, Eddie Ellison and Larry Scott, who have decided that they want to go straight, take a variety of jobs but always have to leave when their nemesis, Detective Harry Welch finds them.

Square Crooks

1928

Riffraff poster
5.4

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.

Riffraff

1936

Make a Wish poster
5.8

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.

Make a Wish

1937

Charlie Chan in Paris poster
6.6

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.

Charlie Chan in Paris

1935

Gold Rush Maisie poster
6.8

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.

Gold Rush Maisie

1940

The Flying Irishman poster
5.0

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.

The Flying Irishman

1939

So Long Mr. Chumps poster
6.5

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.

So Long Mr. Chumps

1941

North of Nome poster
8.0

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.

North of Nome

1936

Cookoo Cavaliers poster
6.4

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.

Cookoo Cavaliers

1940

Making the Headlines poster
8.0

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.

Making the Headlines

1938

Let 'em Have It poster
7.6

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.

Let 'em Have It

1935

School for Girls poster
7.5

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.

School for Girls

1934

Convicted Woman poster
4.6

A reporter and a lawyer investigate a women's prison and help an inmate who does not belong there.

Convicted Woman

1940