Biographie

17 mai 1889 · Hoboken, New Jersey, États-Unis

17 février 1946 · Paris, France (infarctus)

Dorothy Winifred Brown

Parlayed her experience as a survivor of the Titanic disaster into a starring role in Saved from the Titanic (1912), a quickie one-reeler released 29 days after the sinking.

In Saved from the Titanic (1912), she apparently wore the same dress she herself had worn on the ill-fated voyage.

In 1913 she was involved in a fatal car accident. During the ensuing court case it emerged that the owner of the car she was driving, Eclair studio financier Jules Brulatour, intended to divorce his wife and marry Dorothy; and so he did.

Her first husband was George Battier, a Memphis-born pharmacist. They married in February 1910 but separated a few months later. She married Jules Brulatour in 1917 but they split up in 1919, finally divorcing in 1923. Brulatour later married the blonde silent-film star Hope Hampton. Brulatour died in 1946, the same year as Dorothy--she on February 17 and he on October 19.

[her promotion of the 1912 Saved From The Titanic film] The nation and the world had been profoundly grieved by the sinking of the Titanic and I had the opportunity to pay tribute to those who gave their lives on that awful night. That is all I tried to do.

[her recollection of the Titanic sinking] It seemed like a nightmare. Then, there burst out the most ghastly cries, shrieks, yells and moans that a mortal could ever imagine. No one can describe the frightful sounds, that gradually died away to nothing.