Dorothy Ford was born April 4, 1922 in Perris, CA, and raised in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Tucson, AZ. During school, she appeared in several pageants, and after graduation, she went into modeling. Standing 6'2 and with measurements of 38-26-38 1/2, Ford was a natural for photographic work.
Her first job was in San Francisco when Billy Rose cast her in his "Aquacade," along with Johnny Weissmuller, and she was an Earl Carroll showgirl, appearing in various revues including Something to Shout About and Star Spangled Glamour. Ford's physical features and her exceptional good looks quickly brought her to the attention of casting offices, and she made her screen debut as a model in Lady in the Dark (1942). MGM put her under contract in 1943, casting her in two musicals, Thousands Cheer (with Red Skelton) and Broadway Rhythm, both in 1944. Her other appearances that year included Two Girls and a Sailor, Meet the People, Bathing Beauty and The Thin Man Goes Home (with William Powell and Myrna Loy). She was seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray as part of an onscreen performing act, and King Vidor's An American Romance before she left MGM in 1945.
Dorothy studied at the Actors' Lab, the West Coast version of New York City's Group Theater. She had a much fuller role in her Universal Pictures' debut with Abbott & Costello in Here Comes the Co-Eds (1945) which finally gave her a chance to really act. Playing the captain of a women's basketball team appearing as ringers in a college game, she exuded a bold confidence, as well as a shy streak, and stole every scene she was in.
She briefly returned to modeling in Rio de Janeiro, as part of South America's first post-war fashion show. It was there that she met General Mark Clark, who testifies that "this is the first girl I've ever seen who could go bear hunting armed with a switch." In 1946, she returned to MGM and appeared in Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946), playing a co-ed who doesn't have a date for the college dance, and is unexpectedly matched up with 5'2" Mickey Rooney. The height difference between Ford and the diminutive Rooney led to the homecoming dance which was the highlight of the film. This was also Dorothy's first major role to play off her height (in the film, she was wearing four-inch heels, and in publicity stills from the studio, her height was listed as six-foot-six). By that time, she was often referred to in press releases as a "Glamazon." and she was outspoken in encouraging more tall women to stand up for themselves, advising female readers that "if nature has made you tall, then be good and tall." During the 1940's, in an era in which Maureen O'Hara was regarded as formidable at 5'8", Dorothy, at 6'2" and 145 pounds, was regarded as one of the most strikingly beautiful women in Hollywood.
She appeared in a New York stage production of The Big People (which played off her height in a positive way), and in 1948, she was back in Hollywood in an unusual independently-made anthology film, On Our Merry Way. In 1949, she was cast in John Ford's Three Godfathers, and given the very interesting part of the potential love interest of John Wayne. That same year, she was married to James Sterling, a personnel man, in Las Vegas, NV. In shortly over a month, she obtained an annulment of her marriage in Ventura, CA on the grounds that they were both drunk at the time. Her Superior Court suit said the two never lived together after the rites, and she didn't know that she was a bride until two days after the ceremony. Sterling did not contest the suit.
As the 1950's began, Dorothy's career slowed down considerably, and her biggest role of the decade came in the Abbott & Costello fantasy-comedy Jack and the Beanstalk in 1952. Evidently, Lou Costello liked Ford and appreciated her sense of humor, because he later put her in an episode of their TV series The Abbott & Costello Show in 1952. She made various television appearances throughout the 1950s, including The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and The Red Skelton Show. In April of 1952, she marries Thomas B. Chambers, an automobile sales manager and tennis star. In 1953, she was hospitalized after losing her expected baby, and she would later divorce Chambers in 1954.
After an appearance in the Bowery Boys vehicle Feudin' Fools, Ford's screen career started to wind down, but her remaining roles were in some surprisingly high-visibility films. John Wayne cast her in a small role in The High and the Mighty (1954) as a glamour girl with her hooks into Phil Harris, and Billy Wilder used her in the opening segment of The Seven Year Itch (1955). Dorothy appeared in several lower-budget films over the next few years, then faded out of movies in 1962, but she remained involved with the movie business even after giving up acting, joining MGM as a technician in the studio's film lab in 1965. She was married for 30 years to actor Mike Ragan (born Hollis Alan "Holly" Bane), and they retired to Marina Del Rey, CA until his death in 1995. She passed away in Canoga Park, Los Angeles County, CA on October 15, 2010 at the age of 88.
