Dodie Smith Biography

British dramatist and novelist, born in Whitefield, Lancashire, educated at St Paul's School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Until 1935 she wrote under the name C. L. Anthony. Her first play, Autumn Crocus (1931), was followed by several others, including Service (1932), Touch Wood (1933), Call It a Day (1935), Bonnet over the Windmill (1937), Lovers and Friends (1942), Letter from Paris (1952), and These People, Those Books (1957). The best-known of her plays is Dear Octopus (1938), a loving dissection of a family, which was successfully revived in 1967. Six novels followed, including the delightfully romantic I Capture the Castle (1949), which she later dramatized, The New Moon with the Old (1963), The Town in Bloom (1965), A Tale of Two Families (1970), and The Girl from the Candle-lit Bath (1978), as well as numerous books for children, of which One Hundred and One Dalmations (1956) is the most famous and has become a classic. The book was later made into a Disney cartoon film. Four volumes of autobiography comprise Look Back With Love (1974), Look Back with Mixed Feelings (1978), Look Back with Astonishment (1979), and Look Back with Gratitude (1985).