In Remembrance: Dorris Bowden

     Dorris Bowden, the actress best known for appearance in the classic The Grapes Of Wrath before retiring from motion pictures, has passed away on August 9, 2005 in Woodland Hills,  California. She was 90.

     Born on December 27, 1914 in Coldwater, Mississippi, Bowden was discovered by a 20th Century Fox studio talent scout in 1937 while attending Louisiana State University after she had won the Miss Memphis beauty pageant.

     Bowden’s first film appearance was a small, uncredited role in the Barbara Stanwyck drama Always Goodbye (1938). After another small role in Down On The Farm (1938) and an appearance in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) that was cut, Bowden went to the office of Fox writer/producer Nunnally Johnson, hoping that he could give her a meatier role to prove herself. While Nunnally was not casting a project at the time, the two became romantically involved and married two years later.

     After a larger supporting role in director John Ford’s 1939 Drums Along The Mohawk, Bowden’s best performance came in the 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck’s classic Depression-era novel The Grapes Of Wrath playing Rose-Of-Sharon Rivers, the pregnant sister of Henry Fonda’ s Tom Joad. Although Johnson had written the screenplay adaptation for the film, he was always careful to point out that he did not help Bowden land the part.

     After two more film appearances – 1940’s Jennie and 1943’s The Moon Is Down – Bowden retired from film, to concentrate on raising her and Johnson’s three children. Through the 1940s to the 1960s, Bowden was none through Hollywood social circles for her elegant dinner parties.