DS
took up an assistant position in the toys and art department at Heal's
furniture shop, where she soon rose to become a buyer.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
56, 59
“Obituary: Dodie Smith”. Guardian Weekly, 9 Dec. 1990, p. 24.
(9 December 1990): 24
Family and Intimate relationships
Dodie Smith
While she was acting at the Everyman Theatre
, DS
had a brief fling with its founder, Norman MacDermott
. In 1927, a few years after she began working at Heal's
, she began an...
Reception
Dodie Smith
DS
recalled that the play opened on Easter Monday, and the gallery, full of rowdy playgoers, laughed in the wrong places, invited Fay Compton
[playing the lead] to speak up and made itself generally unpleasant...
Textual Features
Dodie Smith
The play, clearly inspired by the author's career at Heal's
furniture shop, offers a rosy view of employees and managers pulling themselves together to get through difficult times. Later, DS
was apologetic about the happy...
Travel
Dodie Smith
After attending a toy fair at Leipzig for her job at Heal's
, DS
travelled to Innsbruck in Austria, where she stayed at a Tyrolean inn—the inspiration for her first West End hit, Autumn...
Wealth and Poverty
Dodie Smith
Autumn Crocus earned DS
enough money—£4,000 by Christmas 1931—to reduce her work at Heal's
to just one day a week.
Grove, Valerie. Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith. Chatto and Windus, 1996.
80-1
By 1937 she had earned £60,000 from her playwriting alone—enough to enable her to...