Author Review - Dodie Smithby Tristi Pinkston | More from this Blogger 17 Jan 2007 11:42 AM After gleefully finding "I Capture the Castle" last year, equally gleefully blogging about it, and then, with a cackle I can only compare to that of a hen, proclaiming it my favorite read of 2006, I hereby pronounce that it's time to learn a little more about the woman behind it all.
She married Alec Beesley, a pacifist who wished to avoid being drafted into World War II by the British, so they moved to America. She turned her writing skills to Hollywood, assisting in the completion of several screenplays which were used by Paramount Pictures. During this time she started collecting Dalmatian dogs, and she and her husband decided to stay in America rather than put their dogs through the long quarantine (six months) that would be necessary if they were to take the dogs back to England with them. During this time in America, Dodie missed her English home and channeled those feelings into writing her first novel, "I Capture the Castle." The book went out of print for many years, but was reissued in 1998 and was made into a BBC movie of the same name, and readers of this generation are falling in love with the story. Dodie wrote "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" in 1956, inspired by a chance comment from a friend, who, upon seeing Dodie's pets, said, "Those dogs would make a lovely fur coat!" Pongo, the main doggy character in the book, was named after her own pet dog, of which she would eventually have nine. Disney made this book into a popular movie, familiar to children everywhere. Dodie also wrote a sequel to "Dalmatians," entitled "The Starlight Barking," but it's nothing like Disney's "102 Dalmatians." That was a creation entirely Disney. Perhaps Dodie's plays and novels would have drifted off into obscurity if not for those dogs; who knows. So let's give a cheer for the dogs and rush out to buy fur coats! Or maybe not. Information for this article was gathered from:
The Complete Adventures of Curious George
Learn more about Tristi Pinkston  I've been a blogger for Families.com since August of 2006. Relevantmedia tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags author, children's books, fiction, romance Discuss this article
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Dodie Smith was born Dorothy Gladys Smith in 1896 in Lancashire, England, and grew up in Manchester. Her main dream as a child was to become an actress, but after spending sometime at the Academy of Dramatic Art, she decided that she was too short and wasn't attractive enough. She quit school and went job hunting, ending up at the toy buyer for Heal's in London. But nothing could take from her the love of the stage, and she turned her creative focus toward writing plays. She wrote and sold a successful play, "Autumn Crocus," in 1929, and did quite well with several more plays after that.
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