Mary Louise Comingore (August 24, 1913 – December 30, 1971), known professionally as Dorothy Comingore, was an American film actress. She starred as Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), the critically acclaimed debut film of Orson Welles. In earlier films she was credited as Linda Winters, and she had appeared on the stage as Kay Winters. Her career ended when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist. She declined to answer questions when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
Early years
Margaret Louise Comingore was born in Los Angeles, California and was described as "a one-time Oakland school girl." She attended the University of California, Berkeley. Her father was an electrotyper; her sister Lucille operated a nightclub in San Francisco.
From 1934 to 1940, Comingore was billed in her stage appearances as Kay Winters and then Linda Winters as a film actress.
Film
Dorothy Comingore was discovered by Charles Chaplin when she was acting in a small playhouse in Carmel. Whether Chaplin played any role in her career is questionable. In 1938, Comingore denied being Chaplin's protégé and indicated that press reports had exaggerated the limited contact that she had with Chaplin and one of his assistants.
Comingore played bit parts in Hollywood movies until Orson Welles cast her as Susan Alexander, the second wife of press tycoon Charles Foster Kane, in his debut feature film Citizen Kane (1941). Her performance garnered rave reviews; the Los Angeles Times, in an otherwise mixed review of the film, said that Comingore "is an important acquisition for pictures". "(She) is put through a range of emotions that would try any actress one could name", wrote The Hollywood Reporter.
In-demand from other studios but refused loanouts by her home studio of RKO, Comingore fell ill, was ordered to go on bedrest, was suspended by RKO, and found no work on her return. Hearst’s newspapers had damaged her reputation and Comingore had ended up on a government watch list for "distributing Communist literature to negroes." Comingore had canvassed door-to-door for actor and state Assembly hopeful Albert Dekker; worked with musician Lead Belly and singer Paul Robeson to desegregate whites-only USO clubs; and promoted "union solidarity". A few years later, the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) gained power, and the FBI had much information on Comingore’s activities.
According to author Kathleen Sharp, “The star also had acquired a powerful enemy - the 78-year-old Hearst. The media mogul so hated Dorothy's portrayal of his mistress, 44-year-old Marion Davies, that he used his chain of newspapers and radio stations to smear the young woman. Hearst's columnists Hedda Hopper and Walter Winchell publicly accused Dorothy of belonging to the "Party" (the Communist Party), and borrowed Orwellian "newspeak" to malign her."
Comingore's supposed Communist connections played a role in a legal battle for custody of her two children with Richard J. Collins. Although Collins was a member of the Communist Party, he later asked to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee and revealed the names of communist colleagues. As a result, he was favored in the custody battle.
According to Peter Bogdanovich in his DVD commentary on Citizen Kane, she impaired her subsequent career by turning down too many roles that she felt were uninteresting. She appeared in the film version of the Eugene O'Neill play The Hairy Ape (1944) with William Bendix, Susan Hayward and John Loder. Comingore's last movie appearance was in a supporting role in The Big Night (1951) starring John Drew Barrymore. Her career ended in 1951, when she was caught up in the Hollywood blacklist. The following year she was called to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee about her alleged Communist connections, and she declined to answer on constitutional grounds. Soon after she was accused of heavy drinking in custody hearings for her children, and on March 19, 1953, she was arrested for prostitution in West Hollywood. The arrest is believed by many to have been part of a revenge scheme orchestrated by the police, offended that she mocked the HUAC. Comingore also said that her 1953 arrest on a prostitution charge was "all a part of my being an 'unfriendly witness.'"
Comingore was one of the contributors to Citizen Kane who was personally interviewed by Dr. Howard Suber of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. His research was used by Pauline Kael for her 1971 essay, "Raising Kane". A copy of the interview is in the collection of the Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington.