Dorothy Revier(1904-1993)
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Silent screen vamp Dorothy Revier (nee Velegra) was born in San
Francisco, California on April 18, 1904, the daughter of a musician. As
a result, Dorothy found herself leaning towards a career in music,
finding work as a chorine and nightclub dancer in her teens. She broke
into films at age 17 with Life's Greatest Question (1921), billed then as Doris Velegra. The
film's storyline was written by first husband Harry Revier, a sometime
director and producer. He also directed Dorothy in her next film
The Broadway Madonna (1922), wherein she changed her stage moniker to reflect her married
status. As Dorothy Revier, she proved a tempting blonde who specialized
in femme fatale types, but inexplicably never hit top-flight stardom
during her silent film reign. Typical alluring titles included Dangerous Pleasure (1924),
The Fate of a Flirt (1925), The Siren (1927) and The Tigress (1927). A former 'Wampas Baby Star,' Dorothy's
most notable effort was as the scheming beauty Milady de Winter in
'Douglas Fairbanks Sr'' The Iron Mask (1929). She was able to make the transition to sound pictures
comfortably enough but moved almost exclusively into "B"-level fare,
eventually earning the dubious title "Queen of Poverty Row" working for
inhabitants of Gower Gulch. Dorothy retired from films after
co-starring in the Buck Jones' western The Cowboy and the Kid (1936), and turned to writing and
painting. Divorced from Revier in 1926, she later married commercial
artist William Pelayo. She died of natural causes in
1993.