Dorothy Christy

Short Biography

Biography by Hal Erickson [-]Blonde American actress Dorothy Christy thrived in the early 1930s as an excellent second lead and comedy foil. Christy seemed most at home in slapstick comedies: she played the older sister who must be married off to clear the way for her younger sister's happiness in Buster Keaton's Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) and rifle-wielding Mrs. Betty Laurel ("I've never missed yet!") in Laurel & Hardy's Sons of the Desert (1933). She was also quite adept at conveying icy truculence, notably as the gossiping socialite in Devil and the Deep (1932) and as bratty Jane Withers' avaricious mother in the 1934 Shirley Temple musical Bright Eyes. Perhaps her most offbeat role was Queen Tika, ruler of the underground city of Murania, in the camp-classic serial Phantom Empire (1935). Throughout the 1940s, she continued playing supporting roles in the 2-reelers of such comics as Leon Errol and Edgar Kennedy, and bits in features, most often in those productions helmed by her Sons of the Desert director William A. Seiter (Little Giant, Lover Come Back etc.) At various junctures in her film career, Dorothy Christy billed herself as Dorothy Christie.