Early life

She was born Dorothy Dodds on April 21, 1907 in Missoula, Montana

Missoula, Montana

Missoula is a city located in western Montana and is the county seat of Missoula County. The 2010 Census put the population of Missoula at 66,788 and the population of Missoula County at 109,299. Missoula is the principal city of the Missoula Metropolitan Area...

 and raised in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Baker attended Whittier College

Whittier College

Whittier College is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California. As of January 2009, the college has approximately 1540 enrolled students.-Overview:...

, then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

, from which she graduated in 1929. This is where she met her future husband, the poet Howard Baker

Howard Baker (poet)

Howard Baker was an American poet, dramatist, and literary critic.Baker was born in Philadelphia. He did graduate work in English at Stanford University, where he befriended Yvor Winters and was co-editor of the literary magazine Gyroscope...

 whom she married in 1930.

For a short while, she taught French and Spanish in a high school in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 but she then went back to UCLA to complete her Master of Arts

Master of Arts

A Master of Arts is a high academic degree offered at many universities in Europe and the United States.A Master of Arts, Magister Artium, or Magister in Artibus may also refer to:...

 in French in 1934.

Career

In 1938 she wrote her first novel, Young Man with a Horn, based on the life of notable jazz cornet player, Bix Beiderbecke

Bix Beiderbecke

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.With Louis Armstrong, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s...

. The novel was a success and she won a Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...

 Literary Fellowship. In 1950, it was made into a movie of the same name

Young Man with a Horn (film)

Young Man with a Horn is a 1950 drama film based on a biographical novel of the same name aboutBix Beiderbecke, the legendary jazz cornetist...

 with Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas

Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...

, Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...

, and Doris Day

Doris Day

Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

. Baker received a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

 for the same book in 1942.

Her next book would be Trio. She and her husband made it into a play which was quickly taken off Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 because of its lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 theme after a protest by a group of Protestant clergymen. At this time, Dorothy was reportedly beginning to show her own lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 inclinations.

After the failure of her play, she went back to writing novels. The next one was Our Gifted Son in 1948. She then wrote Cassandra at the Wedding] in 1962, whose subject was identical twin sisters who were especially close. Baker's husband said that this novel was based on the couple's own two daughters.

In 1967, she co-wrote the script of The Ninth Day in Playhouse 90

Playhouse 90

Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...

. The subject of this episode is a young man living in a group just after World War Three. When he tries to leave, he is forced by the elders to stay and marry the only young woman in the group.

Death

On June 17, 1968, Baker died of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 at the age of 61 in Terra Bella, California

Terra Bella, California

Terra Bella is a census-designated place in Tulare County, California, United States. The population was 3,310 at the 2010 census, down from 3,466 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Terra Bella is located at ....

.

External links

• Dorothy & Howard Baker bios from Stanford
• Answers.com page
• Author bio from New York Review Books
  New York Review Books
  New York Review Books is the publishing house of The New York Review of Books. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, and The New York Review Children's Collection....
  
  
• 1929 Yearbook photo

Research resources

• The papers of Dorothy and Howard Baker, 1926-1990 (33 linear ft.) are housed in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Stanford University Libraries