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Dodie Smith

(1896-1990), Novelist and playwright

Sitter in 3 portraits
Author of the enduringly popular novels I Capture the Castle (1948) and The Hundred and One Dalmations (1956), Smith trained as an actress but gave up the theatre to work in the furniture store Heal & Son. Her first play Autumn Crocus (1929) attracted headlines: 'Shopgirl writes play'. She became one of the most successful playwrights of the 1930s. A pacifist, Smith spent the war years with her husband and her Dalmation dog, Pongo, in Hollywood, working as a scriptwriter. In England she continued to write novels and autobiographies.

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Dodie Smith

by Don Bachardy
pen and ink and wash, 1961
NPG 6423

Dodie Smith

by Pearl Freeman
bromide press print, 1930s
NPG x46529

Dodie Smith

by Anthony Buckley
modern bromide print from original negative, 1953
NPG x76051

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Place

United States

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Dodie Smith

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