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Smith Dorothy Gladys "Dodie"
(1896—1990)
«The One Hundred and One Dalmatians»

Dorothy Gladys "Dodie" Smith was an English novelist and playwright.

She was born at Whitefield, near Bury in Lancashire, but her family soon moved to a detached house in Old Trafford, Manchester. The formative years of her childhood were spent at this house. Her father, Ernest Smith, died when Dodie was a baby, and her mother, Ella Furber Smith, remarried when Dodie was 14, at which time the family relocated to London. In 1914, Dodie entered the Academy (later Royal Academy) of Dramatic Art, and Ella died of breast cancer. During Ella's illness, mother and daughter became followers of Christian Science.

Dodie unsuccessfully pursued a career as an actress. In 1923, she took a job in Heals furniture store in London and became the toy buyer (and a mistress of the chairman, Ambrose Heal). She authored her first play, Autumn Crocus, in 1931 under the pseudonym C.L. Anthony. Its success, and the discovery of her identity by journalists, inspired the newspaper headline, "Shopgirl Writes Play".

She spent most of her years as a writer living in a townhouse in London, where a plaque now commemorates her occupation. In 1939, she married Alec Beesley, another employee at Heal's.

During the 1940s, she and her husband moved to the United States due to legal difficulties with Beesley's stand as a conscientious objector. While living in the U.S. and feeling homesick for England, she wrote her first novel, I Capture the Castle (1948). During the American interlude, the Beesleys became friends with writers Christopher Isherwood, Charles Brackett, and John Van Druten.

Smith is best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956) (which was rather loosely adapted into the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians). Her novel I Capture the Castle also has a devoted following (a film version was released in 2003).

Smith died in 1990 and named Julian Barnes as her literary executor, a job she felt would not be much work. Barnes writes of the complicated task in his essay "Literary Executions", revealing among other things how he secured the return of the film rights to I Capture the Castle, which had been held by Disney since 1949. (Barnes, 2003). Smith's personal papers are housed in Boston University's Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Center, and include manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and correspondence (including letters from Christopher Isherwood and John Gielgud).

Belgium, 2006, Dalmatin

Caicos islands, 1983, Goofy and puppies

Fujeira, 1972, Pongo's solitude

Fujeira, 1972, Perdita on walk

Fujeira, 1972, Roger and Pongo

Fujeira, 1972, Provoked meeting

Fujeira, 1972, Cruella de Ville

Fujeira, 1972, Nanni's affection

Fujeira, 1972, Dog's family

Fujeira, 1972, Cruella proposes the sale

Fujeira, 1972, Jasper and Horace

Fujeira, 1972, Nanny discovers the robbery