Dorothy Peters

(b. Camberwell, London, **/**/1898 - **/**/****). Actress, theatrical producer. Dorothy Vera Peters turned to the stage soon after she left school and was given her first parts by Frank Cellier, who continued to take an interest in her career. He came out to South Africa in November 1915 as part of the Ethel Irving Company and it is likely that she came out with him as the following year she acted in A Story of the Rand, directed by Lorimer Johnston, which was the first fictional film produced by African Film Productions.

When Cellier joined the Leonard Rayne Company, Peters moved with him and acted in a series of productions at the Standard Theatre, starring the likes of Freda Godfrey, Florence Glossop-Harris (Mrs. Frank Cellier) and Cellier himself. These plays included The Blindness of Virtue, The Double Event, The Morals of Marcus, The Professor’s Love Story, Disraeli and The Second in Command, all in 1918. In The Christian, also in 1918, she acted with M.A. Wetherell. Cellier returned to Great Britain in August 1919 and it is probable that she also left South Africa at that time.

In 1922 she acted in a British short film called Dutch Courage, directed by George Dunstall, but concentrated on the theatre, acting in such plays as Ancient Lights (1923), Fatherhood (1925), The Lavender Garden (1925), Cobra (1925), The Apple Cart (1929), Sentenced (1930) and, visiting Australia, Autumn Crocus (1932). From the mid-thirties she became a producer. In 1937 she married Lord Edward Montagu, who told the press that he had met her the previous year when he was trying his hand at a little theatrical work. The marriage didn’t last and they were divorced in 1947. (FO)

Sources

Sydney Morning Herald, 25 November 1932

Kalgoorlie Miner, Western Australia, 1 September 1937

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