Dorothy Tree

Dorothy Tree, born Dorothy Estelle Triebitz on May 21, 1906, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actress, voice teacher, and writer who built a career spanning stage, film, and television before reinventing herself as an educator following her blacklisting in the early 1950s. She died on February 13, 1992, at age 85 of heart failure at the Actors Fund of America Nursing Home in Englewood, New Jersey. The eldest of three daughters born to Herman Triebitz and Bertha Hert, both Austrian immigrants whose native language was Yiddish, she grew up in Brooklyn while her father operated a shoe store and later worked in wholesale shoe sales. Her sisters were Sylvia Triebitz and Mildred "Mimi" Triebitz. Tree attended Cornell University but left after two years to pursue acting, adopting the stage name Dorothy Tree at the outset of her professional career in 1926.

Her Broadway career ran from 1927 to 1936 and included a range of productions. She appeared in The Marquise and The Triumphant Bachelor in 1927, followed by Holiday in 1928. Her subsequent stage credits included The Merchant of Venice in 1930, Clear All Wires in 1932, and Bright Honor in 1936. On screen, Tree accumulated credits in at least 49 films between 1927 and 1951. Her motion picture debut came in the 1927 Famous Players–Lasky silent comedy It, starring Clara Bow and Antonio Moreno, in which she appeared uncredited as a department store employee. She went on to play a wife of Bela Lugosi's Dracula in Universal's 1931 production, and also appeared in the Spanish-language version of the same film, shot at night on the same sets with a different cast.

Tree drew considerable attention for her portrayal of Hilda Kleinhauer, a hairdresser-spy, in the Warner Bros. drama Confessions of a Nazi Spy in 1939, starring Edward G. Robinson. That film won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film in the English Language. The role led directly to her casting as Reni Vonich, the leader of a spy ring, in Paramount's science fiction drama Television Spy, also released in 1939. The following year, RKO signed her to play Elizabeth Edwards, the sister of Mary Todd, in Abe Lincoln in Illinois, starring Raymond Massey. She portrayed Martha Rockne, mother of the football coach played by Pat O'Brien, in the Warner Bros. biographical film Knute Rockne, All American. In MGM's film noir The Asphalt Jungle, she played May Emmerich, a bedridden woman married to the crooked lawyer Alonzo Emmerich, portrayed by Louis Calhern. Tree also appeared in a live television production titled Minor Incident, part of the anthology series The Silver Theatre in 1950, playing Aunt Martha Dale. Her final screen role was as Marie Elsner in Columbia's crime drama The Family Secret in 1951, starring John Derek and Lee J. Cobb.

In 1952, Tree and her husband, screenwriter and story editor Michael Uris, whom she had married on June 8, 1928, in Manhattan, were branded as communists following HUAC testimony given by playwright and screenwriter Bernard C. Schoenfeld. The blacklist effectively ended her acting career. The couple had one son, Joseph M. Uris, born in 1943. Michael Uris died on July 17, 1967. Following the blacklist, Tree began a second career as a voice and diction teacher in New York, working under her married name, Dorothy Uris. She taught at the Metropolitan Opera, the Mannes College of Music, and the Manhattan School of Music, with a specialization in singing in English and an emphasis on diction, clarity, and the subtleties of intonation. In 1956, an article she wrote on English singing and diction was published in the New York Times. She authored four books: Everybody's Book of Better Speaking in 1960, To Sing in English, a Guide to Improved Diction in 1971, A Woman's Voice: A Handbook to Successful Private and Public Speaking in 1975, and Say it Again: Dorothy Uris' Personal Collection of Quotes, Comment & Anecdotes in 1979.