2013 Essays

Dorothy Gordon

Verhoeven, Deb

Perhaps due to her later fame as the newspaper columnist and controversial radio personality known as “Andrea,” the early film career of Dorothy Gordon has been largely overlooked. Certainly her significant celebrity in Australia in the 1960s overshadowed her comparatively lesser achievements as a silent cinema extra, actor, screenwriter, and art director. The recognition of her contribution to the Australian film industry is further diminished by the loss of her major work as star of Raymond Longford’s Hills of Hate (1926). In addition, her reputation as an entertaining raconteur fond of telling tall stories, especially about herself, leaves much room for doubt about the recorded detail of her early career in both Hollywood and Australian silent films.