Early life Smith was born on 3 May 1896 in a house named Stoneycroft (number 118 - now 167) on Bury New Road,
Whitefield, near
Bury in
Lancashire, England. She was an only child. Her parents were Ernest and Ella Smith (née Furber). Ernest was a bank manager; he died in 1898 when Dodie was two years old. Dodie and her mother moved to
Old Trafford to live with her grandparents, William and Margaret Furber. Dodie's childhood home, Kingston House, was at 609 Stretford Road, and faced the
Manchester Ship Canal. She lived with her mother, maternal grandparents, two aunts and three uncles.
Career after acting Even though Smith had sold a movie script,
Schoolgirl Rebels, using the pseudonym Charles Henry Percy, She wrote her first staged play,
Autumn Crocus, in 1931 using the pseudonym C.L. Anthony. Its success, and the discovery of her identity by journalists, inspired the newspaper headline, "Shopgirl Writes Play". The show starred
Fay Compton and
Francis Lederer.), who had also worked at Heal's and had become her longtime friend and business manager. The two married in 1939. She would not have another play staged in London until 1952, though
Lovers and Friends did play at the
Plymouth Theatre in 1943. The show featured
Katharine Cornell and
Raymond Massey.
Later life During the 1940s Smith and Beesley relocated to the United States to avoid difficulties due to his being a
conscientious objector. Smith's personal papers are housed in
Boston University's Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, and include manuscripts, photographs, artwork and correspondence (including letters from
Christopher Isherwood and
John Gielgud). ==
The Hundred and One Dalmatians==