DOROTHY COONAN WELLMAN

Dorothy Coonan was an actress and dancer in Busby Berkeley musicals. She was cast in "Wild Boys of the Road" in 1933, when she was 20, in an important part as a girl disguised as a boy. She caught the eye of the 17 year older director William Wellman, who would marry her the following year, and she would become Dorothy Coonan Wellman. She was his fifth wife, and he was only 37 years old at the time, but he credits her with "having rescued him", and she retired, and they remained married until he passed away in 1975, having had 7 children together (and he had one other child from one of those previous 4 wives). Dorothy passed away in 2009 at the age of 95.