Claire Dodd

 Claire Dodd, born Dorothy Arlene Dodd (December 29, 1911 – November 23, 1973)

While working as a model in Los Angeles, she was cast as a Goldwyn Girl in Eddie Cantor's movie Whoopee!, which was produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld offered Dodd a part in his next Broadway musical, Smiles. She joined the Ziegfeld Follies and moved to New York City, where she studied singing and dancing. While there, the blond actress was signed to a Paramount contract by Darryl F. Zanuck and returned to Los Angeles. Dodd went on to work at Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal studios in more than sixty films over a dozen years, from 1930 to 1942. Dodd was usually type-cast as the "other woman," a femme fatale, siren, seductress, mistress, blackmailer, or otherwise scheming blonde. She twice played secretary Della Street to Warren William's Perry Mason, in The Case of the Curious Bride (1935), and The Case of the Velvet Claws (1936). In the latter movie Dodd's character was the only Della to wed Perry Mason. One of her last films was Abbott and Costello's In the Navy (1941). Claire Dodd was Hollywood's "mystery girl" in the 1930s - a label she acquired because she was good at keeping her personal and professional lives separate. She was married twice, having one child in her first marriage and four children in her second. She died at her home in Beverly Hills, California from cancer, aged 61. Dodd is buried at the Brand Family Cemetery on the grounds of the Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale, California.