Dodd was born on December 29, 1911, in Baxter, Iowa, to Walter Willard Dodd, a farmer whose family were early Jasper County pioneers, and his wife, Ethel Viola Dodd, daughter of Baxter Postmaster Peter J. Cool. Her family moved frequently while she was growing up, living in Denver, Kansas City, Phoenix, St. Louis, and Missoula, Montana, among other places. Her parents separated in Montana and young Dorothy went to California, where she worked as a model in Los Angeles and auditioned for minor film roles. While working as a model in Los Angeles, she was cast in a small part in Eddie Cantor's movie Whoopee!, which was produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld offered Dodd a part in his next Broadway musical, Smiles. She joined the Ziegfeld Follies and moved to New York City, where she studied singing and dancing. After Smiles ended, she signed a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures. After acting in bit parts in several films, she was signed to a Warner Bros. contract by Darryl F. Zanuck. Some confusion has led to Dodd's birthplace being listed as Des Moines, Iowa. Early in her career, Dodd applied for a passport in preparation for a trip to Europe, and was reported as saying she only knew she was born in Iowa. Whether an attempted bit of publicity, she wound up with plenty in her home state. "My early childhood is just a blur to me," she once said. "I don't remember a thing about Iowa, I'm sorry to say. I was so small when I left there." Dodd had numerous relatives who still lived in and around Baxter when her apparent memory lapse was reported in the Register & Tribune's Iowa News Service on April 29, 1935. Locals were in an uproar for a time, spurred on by newspaper editorials taking the incident as an insult to a small town in rural Iowa. Deputy Jasper County Clerk John B. Norris quickly sent a copy of her birth certificate to Dodd by registered mail to end the question. Dodd went on to work at Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal studios in more than sixty films over a dozen years, from 1930-42. Dodd was usually type-cast as the "other woman", a femme fatale, siren, seductress, mistress, blackmailer, or other kind of schemer. But she also twice played secretary Della Street to Warren William's Perry Mason, in The Case of the Curious Bride, and The Case of the Velvet Claws. In the latter, Dodd's character was the only incarnation of Della Street to ever wed Mason. One of her last films was Abbott and Costello's In the Navy.
Family
Claire Dodd was Hollywood's "mystery girl" in the 1930s - a label she acquired because she was good at keeping her personal and professional lives separate. In 1931, Dodd married John Milton Strauss, an investment banker. She gave birth to her first child, Jon Michael Strauss, which surprised much of Hollywood society as they didn't even know she was married. The couple divorced in 1938. She retired from acting and married her second husband H. Brand Cooper in 1942. They had four children: a daughter ; and three sons.
