A Master of Musical Romances: The Screenwriting Career of Dorothy Kingsley

In honor of Valentine’s Day it’s time to celebrate a female screenwriter who managed to take bubble-gum parts for actresses and give them more gumption, gravitas, and giggles inside the light musical genre films she was assigned.

Born in New York City in 1909, Dorothy Kingsley could be called a nepo-baby as her mother Alma Hanlon became a silent film star a few years later. Hanlon acted for 4 years from 19150-1919. By then she had left her husband Walter J. Kingsley (press agent to Florenz Ziegfeld), married again and moved young Dorothy to Michigan.

Eventually, Kingsley found her way back into the industry but this time by moving herself and her 3 children to Los Angeles where radio was king. There she met Constance Bennett who like her mother had been a big silent film star in the 1920s but now hosted a radio show.  Bennett began buying Kingsley’s jokes for her monologues which lead to a place on the writing staff of the The Edgar Bergen Show.

Along the way Bergen starred in a couple of films in 1941 and ’42 for which Kingsley is credited with “material”. That brought her to the attention of Arthur Freed who added her to the rewrite (also known then as ‘punch up’) team who adapted George Gershwin’s Girl Crazy into a teen rom-com. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney had become a famous film team in the Andy Hardy series of films with Girl Crazy the last time they played opposite each other on screen.

Kingsley’s strength with female characters made her in demand. When the studio decided it was time for Elizabeth Taylor to go from cute child star in films like National Velvet (1944) to teen heartthrob Kingsley was assigned adapt the radio show A Date With Judy into a film in 1948.  By 1950 Kingsley began work on a couple of movies for another teen star whose life would cross Taylor’s a few years later – Debbie Reynolds.

Kingsley moved on to adaptations of hit Broadway musicals with interesting female characters from Kiss Me Kate (1953) to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) to Pal Joey (1957) starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak. In between, Kingsley added as much depth as she could to films starring Esther Williams, the former competitive swimmer turned actress.  Dangerous When Wet (1953) starred Williams and Latin heartthrob Fernando Lamas and Jupiter’s Darling starred Williams and Broadway legends Howard Keel and Marge and Gower Champion. Because of the success of Pal Joey Sinatra agreed to star in Kingsley’s Can-Can. The film, which also starred Shirley MacLaine, became the highest-grossing film of 1960.

The rise of the New Wave in Hollywood meant less production of ‘old-fashioned’ musicals and more production of teen angst.  That left a break in Kingsley’s credits until her adaptation of the best selling Jacqueline Susann novel Valley of the Dolls (1967). Perhaps her work with so many female stars made her the perfect screenwriter for this story of three young women struggling to succeed in show business.

Kingsley left Hollywood for Carmel, California when she married her second husband and they opened a winery.  She died there in 1997. The credit most sports movie fans will recognize comes from the 1994 remake of her 1951 film Angels in the Outfield. 

If you’d like to learn more about the history of women of women in screenwriting, and about the craft of screenwriting while earning your MFA from your own home, our low residency Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is currently accepting applications: https://stephens.edu/program/master-of-fine-arts-in-tv-screenwriting/