Dorothy Smoller

Dorothy Smoller (c. 1898 – December 9, 1926) was an American actress and dancer from Memphis, Tennessee whose career spanned stage, screen, and international performance before her Broadway appearances between 1918 and 1922.

Smoller began her professional life as a dancer at the Palace and St. Francis hotels in San Francisco. In 1914 she traveled internationally to demonstrate the tango, and subsequently trained under Ruth St. Denis. The following year she performed as a solo dancer at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where her bacchanale drew significant attention. She then spent approximately two years dancing in support of Anna Pavlova during Pavlova's South American tour and on Pavlova's return to New York.

Her stage career in New York included roles in several productions in 1919 and 1920, among them See-Saw, produced by Henry W. Savage, and What's In a Name, produced by John Murray Anderson. Her Broadway credits also encompassed the revues A Fantastic Fricassee, Pin Wheel, The Clouds, and Night, as well as the play The Checkerboard. In 1921 she appeared in operetta at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco and on tour. That same period saw her take a dancing role in the 1919 film Out of the Fog, and in December 1919 she was featured on the cover of Vogue magazine in a photograph taken by Adolphe de Meyer.

In 1923 Smoller was diagnosed with severe pulmonary tuberculosis. She spent two years receiving treatment at the Cragmor Sanitarium in Colorado Springs, where she met Benjamin Strong, who was also being treated for tuberculosis. Disregarding medical advice, she returned to New York to resume her dancing career. During rehearsals for the Broadway play Howdy, King, she suffered a hemorrhage. A screen test she had taken at the Famous Players studio had not resulted in firm employment, and a New York newspaper cited this as a contributing factor in her state of mind. On December 9, 1926, four days before Howdy, King was scheduled to open, Smoller died by suicide in her room at the Hotel Shelton in New York City. She had consumed liquid shoe polish containing potassium cyanide, and left letters addressed to her mother, Mrs. Rose Smoller, and to Benjamin Strong.