She was born on March 4, 1903 in Hull, England. Her father, John Mackaill, worked as a butler. After her parents separated she lived with her father and brother. At the age of sixteen she ran away to home to become a dancer. Dorothy worked as a chorus girl in London and in Paris. A choreographer convinced her to try her luck in New York City. The beautiful teenager was hired to dance in the Ziegfeld Follies Midnight Frolic. She made her film debut in the 1920 mystery The Face At The Window. Then she co-starred with Anna May Wong in Bits Of Life and with George O'Brien in The Man Who Came Back. In 1924 she was chosen to be a Wampas Baby Star along with Clara Bow and Lucille Ricksen. Dorothy was offered a contract with First National. She was given leading roles in numerous films including The Dancer Of Paris, Just Another Blonde, and The Crystal Cup. On November 17, 1926 she married German director Lothar Mendes. The couple divorced two years later.
Dorothy was able to lose her British accent and easily made the transition to sound films. When Warner Brothers bought First National they chose not to renew her contract. She continued to get starring roles in pre-code films like The Office Wife and Safe In Hell. Dorothy married singer Neil Albert Miller in 1934 but they divorced three years later. By this time she had grown tired of acting. She decided to quit making movies so she could care for her aging mother. Her final film was the 1937 drama Bulldog Drummond At Bay. In June of 1947 she married Harold Patterson, a horticulturist. They split up just eighteen months later. Dorothy moved into the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on Waikiki beach in 1955. She loved living in Hawaii and went swimming in the ocean almost every day. During the 1970s she came out of retirement to appear in several episodes of the television drama Hawaii Five-O. On August 12, 1990 she died from liver failure at the age of eighty-seven. Dorothy was cremated and her ashes were scattered on Waikiki beach.
