Forty years after her retirement, she scored a success with John Cassavetes’s Faces (1968). The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Where has Dorothy Gulliver been hiding for so long? She is a first-class actress with an amazing on-screen presence. May she continue to shine.”The oldest daughter of seven children, she was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1908 to Violet and Alfred Gulliver, English immigrants From childhood, she was an avid film fan. Among her favourite actors were Gloria Swanson, Mae Murray and Marie Prevost.In 1924, she entered a beauty competition and won the title “Miss Salt Lake City”. A talent scout from Paramount Studios suggested that she follow him back to Hollywood, where a contract would be waiting for her. Dorothy’s mother, Violet, a strict Mormon, was less enthusiastic about the offer and turned him down.Undaunted, Dorothy tried her luck again with a nationwide talent contest and won.

This time, realising that their daughter wanted nothing else, her parents allowed her to claim her prize, a contract with Universal, on the condition that her two elder brothers accompany her and act as her guardians.Arriving in Hollywood by train in 1925 with also a younger sister in tow, Dorothy found the movie capital of the world not quite what she had anticipated. “I don’t quite know what I expected,” she recalled,but it certainly wasn’t what greeted us. I imagined movie stars walking along Hollywood Boulevard and my photograph plastered on every street corner The reality couldn’t have been further from the truth. There was no one to greet us, no car, no studio representative, instead we had to find our own way out to the studio and wait in a darkened office to be seen.

I was heartbroken.Once in residence at the Hollywood Hotel, Dorothy began the arduous task of being groomed for stardom:I had my eyebrows plucked, my eyelashes dyed and my hair permed I hardly recognised myself. At the studio I wasshown how to ride a horse on the back lot by Yakima Canutt, and given a series of bit parts so that I could learn my trade.In 1926, she was paired with George J Lewis for The Collegians. Based on the lives of two college sweethearts, the film was an instant hit. “I became a favourite of male adolescents everywhere.”As well as follow-ups to The Collegians Gulliver made a string of westerns. She added valuable support to Fay Wray and Ben Corbett in One Wild Time (1926), and appeared with Fred Humes in One Glorious Scrap (1927) and with Jack Hoxie in The Rambling Ranger (1927). In 1926, she made The Shield of Honor opposite Thelma Todd:Thelma was the smartest dumb blonde I ever knew. She played the studio executives off against one another: this way she got big cheques and good parts.

Thelma introduced me to the director William De Vito and it was love at first sight We were married from her home in the Holmby Hills. Universal were horrified when they discovered what I’d done and made me keep my marriage a secret until I was a more established star.The following year, Gulliver was loaned out to Warner Brothers, where she was cast opposite their canine star Rin Tin Tin in A Dog of the Regiment. Good Morning, Judge (1928), Malcolm St Clair’s Night Parade (1929) and Painted Faces (1929) followed.In 1929, she was chosen as one of the 13 most promising young ing?es in Hollywood by the Western Association of Picture Advertisers, a body of established directors and movie people who each year selected a group of young actresses who they felt held promise. Lupe Velez, Lina Basquette, Alice Day, Molly O’Day and Audrey Ferris were also shortlisted.With the arrival of sound, The Collegians came to the end of its course.