Dorothy Revier Biography

The daughter of a musician, Doris Velegra worked as a chorus girl and nightclub dancer before making her film debut in 1921's Life's Greatest Question. The following year, she appeared as Dorothy Revier in Broadway Madonna, directed by her first husband, Harry Revier. Never a major star, Revier was a dependable, hardworking leading lady, averaging seven to ten movie appearances per year during the silent era. Perhaps her most celebrated assignment was Milady de Winter in Douglas Fairbanks' The Iron Mask (1929), one of her many "vamp" or evil-seductress roles. Making a successful transition to talkies, Revier kept busy at Fox and Universal, continuing in the femme-fatale mode that had earned her fame. By the mid-'30s, she was consigned almost exclusively to B-pictures, earning the far-from-coveted soubriquet "Queen of Poverty Row." After finishing her duties on a 1936 Buck Jones Western, Dorothy Revier retired from films. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi