LEST WE FORGET DOROTHY STICKNEY
"A Lady of the Theatre"
(June 21, 1896 - June 2, 1998)

Widow of playwright Howard Lindsay after 41 years of marriage, they co-starred as Clarence and Vinnie Day during the long run of Life With Father, the longest-running non-musical Broadway play in history (1939 - 1947).

The play was turned down by the Lunts and many other stars. It was tried out in summer stock at the Lakewood Theater in Skowhegan, Maine with Mr. Lindsay and Miss Stickney thrust into the leading roles.  She said: "We weren't at all sure we were good enough for the parts. We had never originally intended to play them ourselves." Success in summer stock eventually led to Broadway, and opening night was filled with minor disasters. In the first scene the actress playing the maid accidentally dropped a tray of dishes, and, later, several actors forgot their lines.  The Lindsays went home and cried.      "Little did we realize that the play would last through World War II."

A WISE AND PATIENT MOTHER
   Her portrayal of the mother was at the heart of the play. She was understanding without being overly sentimental.  Brooks Atkinson said her portrait was "brilliant acting, both sweet and witty, with a supple response to the storminess of her domestic economy."

Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney in Life With Father

OVERCOMING STAGE FRIGHT

In her 1979 memoir Openings and Closings, she wrote about her lifelong battle with stage fright. She said she had learned one lesson: "When panic overtook me and I felt absolutely unable to go on, I would tell myself, 'You don't have to do the whole play--you don't even have to play the next scene--all you have to do is say the next line."  Although she never fully conquered that fear, she was always able to say the next line and the next line, and in so doing found a lifetime of accomplishment in the theater.

EARLY CAREER CHALLENGES

After a one-line performance as a Folies Bergere girl in Toto which starred the great European star Leo Dictrichstein, she returned to New York.    She lived in a "rickety West Side rooming house" with another aspiring actress who was so tiny she could play child parts.
     "We wore out our shoes making the rounds of the offices every day. On summer nights when our bedroom was too stiflingly hot for sleeping, we would get seats in the open air on the top of a beautiful double-decker Fifth Avenue bus, and for ten cents each, we would ride all night and get a small breeze.
     About three in the morning, when it got a little cooler, we would go back to our room and stretch out in the lumpy bed until it was time to get up and start looking for jobs again. We were hopelessly stagestruck.  We pounded the pavements, and haunted managers' and agents' offices only to be turned away with a shake of the head, when we had barely gotten inside the door, or with 'Nothing today,' or worst of all, with a "You're not the type." Life was a combination of hope and despair.
     For three years I tried to see the producer Edgar Selwyn and never got further than his office boy. One day while waiting endlessly, hoping for a few words from the great man, I whiled away the time and vented my anger by writing some verses."

YOU'RE NOT THE TYPE by Dorothy Stickney  (reprinted in her Memoir)
                 
                   I looked for work in early fall
                  And could not find a part at all.
                  I looked and looked and looked and then
                  I looked and looked and looked again,
                  And looked and looked and now it's spring,
                  And still I haven't anything.
                  Too fat, too thin, too short, too tall,
                  Too blond, too dark, too large, too small.

                  An office boy my dream would thwart,
                 "You're not the type," I'd hear him snort,
                  So then I asked a big producer
                  "Oh, let me play a part for you, sir!"
                  And as my eye he saw me wipe,
                  He yawned and said, "You're not the type."
                  A playwright next I interviewed,
                  My heart with brightest hopes imbued.

                 He turned away and lit his pipe,
                 And shortly said, "You're not the type."
                 To see an agent then I went,
                  My shoes worn out, my money spent.
                 The agent smiled and said, "My dear,
                 You're not the type. Come in next year,
                 For doubtless then we'll be engaging."
                 And I departed madly raging.

                So here within my furnished room,
                At least I face my awful doom.
               I'll starve and go (I hope) above,
               And this is what I'm thinking of--
               Perhaps if I am very good
               And play my harp as angels should,
               Saint Peter will be kind to me
               And lend me once his Golden Key.

              I hope to see upon the stair
              Imploring for admittance there,
              Producers, playwrights, agents, too,
              And all the deadly office crew.
              When my familiar face they see
              They'll say, "Don't you remember me?"
              Then from the Pearly Gates I'll pipe,
              "Oh, go to Hell! You're not the type!"


REFERENCES
Openings and Closings. Dorothy Stickney. Doubleday and Company NY 1979
Wikipedia
NY Times Obituary
Bismarck Tribune Obiturary
IBDB and IMDB