THE GIRLS OF PLEASURE ISLAND
Dorothy was born in Manchester, the daughter of Frank Bromiley, a sports journalist and Ada Thornton. She was an only child.
She attended her local school in Levenshulme, where she became Deputy Head Girl. Dorothy showed a particular talent for drama. After one local production (Noel Coward’s ‘I’ll Leave It to You’), the Stockport Advertiser commented on her ‘zest’.
Dorothy then went to the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, in London, where she gained a diploma.
In 1952, Paramount advertised in the UK for three British girls to appear in a new romantic comedy film, to be directed by F. Hugh Herbert. Over 700 women applied.
Herbert said he wanted, “The most typical types of British beauty.”
Dorothy was one of the girls selected, alongside Audrey Dalton and Joan Elan.
The film was called ‘The Girls of Pleasure Island’ and was about three sisters living on a Pacific atoll, with their plantation-owning father, surrounded by love-starved American servicemen. Dorothy was to play a sixteen-year-old called Gloria, despite actually being twenty-one.
The Manchester Evening News reported, “Hundreds of girls envy the 21-year-old Dorothy Bromiley, the Levenshulme Manchester starlet who flies to Hollywood on a six month, £150-a-week contract.”
There was so much fuss made in the USA, that by the time the girls arrived they were already household names and were constantly featured in the American press. Life Magazine said of Dorothy, “The Bromiley dame is a pixie.”
Dorothy rented an apartment in Beverly Hills and bought herself an MG. She immediately ‘took to’ the Hollywood lifestyle – and shed her northern accent.
However, the film was a total flop. Reviews were terrible. The Daily Herald said, “The three girls were flown all the way to Hollywood to make the film. I doubt if their journey was really necessary.”
There was no more work forthcoming. Dorothy screen tested for a film starring Ginger Rogers but didn’t get the part. Instead, she enrolled as a student at the University of Southern California.
She said, “I loved working at the studios and made quite a few friends there at the start – but I soon discovered that when one’s not employed, one’s friends in the film business soon dwindle.”
The only one of the girls who got any more acting work was Audrey Dalton who appeared in ‘Casanova’s Big Night’, alongside Bob Hope and Joan Fontaine.
Shortly afterwards, Dorothy returned to England. She got a job working as a stage manager in the Central Library Theatre in Manchester.
Dorothy was cast in a West End play by Edmund Morris, called ‘The Wooden Dish’, directed by the American Joseph Losey. He was a well-known name in Hollywood but had been chased out of the country during the McCarthy Witch Hunts.
Losey had already noticed Dorothy in Hollywood and was attracted to her, appointing her to appear in his play. It was about a young woman struggling to cope with her grandfather slipping into senility.
The play received excellent reviews but was not a commercial success. All the cast, including Dorothy, took pay cuts, right down to the minimum wage allowed by Equity, to keep the play going.
Nevertheless, Joseph Losey had fallen in love with Dorothy. He had already been married and divorced twice. His biography states, ‘He had already taken a fancy to this malleable and attractive young woman.”
He proposed to her in front of the whole of the cast and crew of the play on it’s very last night. When she accepted, Joseph gave her a ring and called her, “My Child Bride.” She was 21 years younger than him.
At 25-years old it was a phrase that Dorothy absolutely hated, although it was regularly used when referring to her.
Just before the wedding, Dorothy starred as Wendy Darling in the 50th anniversary play of Peter Pan, which toured the country.
Dorothy and Joseph were married in 1956. They lived in a luxurious house in Knightsbridge, where they had a son called Joshua. One of Joseph’s other sons, from a previous marriage, moved in as well.
Some people were cynical about Joseph marrying Dorothy. His passport was running out and he would have had to return to the USA to ‘face the music’. By marrying a British citizen, he was allowed to stay.
Dorothy didn’t believe this was his motivation. “There were others who could have been more useful to him, so why pick on me? There’s no doubt that I was in love with him and I think he was in love with me too. I’m sure of it.”
Dorothy kept working. She appeared in films, including ‘It’s Great to be Young’ where she played a teenager with John Mills as her music teacher.
She was also in films with Frankie Howerd and Irene Handl, and then had a cameo appearance in Joseph’s thriller ‘The Criminal’. She also starred in ITV’s 1959 adaptation of ‘A Room With a View’.
Dorothy then played a small part in what is considered Losey’s masterpiece, ‘The Servant’ starring Dirk Bogarde, having an argument with him outside a telephone box.
Meanwhile, the marriage was not going well. Joseph treated Dorothy like a servant and humiliated her constantly in public. She said, “Joe was overpowering. He took you over – and your life.”
In 1963, she asked for, and was granted, a divorce.
Soon afterwards, she became the partner of Brian Phelan, an Irish actor, screen writer and playwright, who had appeared alongside her in Losey’s films ‘The Criminal’ and ‘The Servant’.
She took his surname (although they never married) and they moved to Dorset where they had a daughter, Kate.
Throughout the 1960s, Dorothy had small television roles in programmes such as ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’, ‘Saturday Playhouse’ and ‘Z-Cars’.
In between roles, she taught Drama at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).
In 1972, she founded the co-operative Common Stock Theatre Company in West London.
Her very last TV appearance was in 1977, in ‘Fathers and Families’ for the BBC.
In 1982, her life took a different direction as she opened a shop called the Sherborne Tapestry Centre in Dorset. Although it closed in the mid-1990s, antique needlework became her passion in life.
Dorothy wrote many books on the subject such as ‘The Point of the Needle’ and ‘The Goodhart Samplers’ and curated various exhibitions. She once appeared on Women’s Hour on Radio Four.
Dorothy died in Dorset aged 93. Her partner, Brian, died just five days after her.
RIP – Remembered (for) Island Paradise
