1. Dorothy Gibson survived the sinking of the Titanic and starred in the first motion picture based on the disaster.
16 Facts About Dorothy Gibson
1. 2.
Dorothy Gibson was born on May 17,1889, to John A Brown and Pauline Caroline Boesen as Dorothy Winifred Brown in Hoboken, New Jersey.
3.
Dorothy Gibson's father died when she was three years old, and her mother married John Leonard Gibson.
4.
Dorothy Gibson was a regular chorus member in shows produced by the Shubert Brothers at the Hippodrome Theatre.
5.
Dorothy Gibson was widely publicized during this time as "The Original Harrison Fisher Girl".
6.
Dorothy Gibson soon separated from Battier, though the two were not divorced until 1913.
7.
Dorothy Gibson was hired as leading lady by the new US branch of Paris-based Eclair Studios in July 1911.
8.
Dorothy Gibson was an instant hit with audiences, becoming one of the first actresses in the new medium of film to be promoted as a "star" in her own right.
9.
Dorothy Gibson left movies to pursue a choral career, her most notable appearance in that venue being at the Metropolitan Opera House in Madame Sans-Gene.
10.
In 1911, Dorothy Gibson began a six-year love affair with married movie tycoon Jules Brulatour, head of distribution for Eastman Kodak and co-founder of Universal Pictures.
11.
Brulatour was an advisor and producer for Eclair; he backed several of Dorothy Gibson's films, including her 1912 hit Saved From the Titanic.
12.
Dorothy Gibson was arrested as an anti-Fascist agitator and imprisoned in the Milan prison of San Vittore, from which she escaped with two other prisoners, journalist Indro Montanelli and General Bortolo Zambon.
13.
Dorothy Gibson's estate was divided between her lover, Emilio Antonio Ramos, press attache for the Spanish Embassy in Paris, and her mother, who lived until 1961 when she too was found dead in a Paris hotel room.
14.
Dorothy Gibson's only surviving film is the adventure-comedy A Lucky Holdup.
15.
Dorothy Gibson was the inspiration for a character in her friend Indro Montanelli's novel General della Rovere, which was turned into an award-winning film by director Roberto Rossellini in 1959.
16.
Authors Don Lynch and John P Eaton were the first contemporary historians to rediscover Dorothy Gibson, writing and lecturing about her as early as the 1980s.