Karen Dotrice
Karen Dotrice (born 9 November 1955) is an English actress known primarily for her roles as a child in three Walt Disney films of the 1960s.
Following four films, five television appearances and a short run as Desdemona in the Broadway production of Othello, she retired from show business in 1984 to focus on motherhood.
Film
Karen Dotrice (pronounced doh-TREESE) was born in Guernsey, Channel Islands. She made her screen debut at age 8 in Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). That same year, she and Thomasina co-star Matthew Garber were hired to play Jane and Michael, the children of George Banks (David Tomlinson), who gets more than he bargained for when he hires a nanny named Mary Poppins. Disney's part-live-action, part-animation adaptation of the Mary Poppins book series by P. L. Travers won five Academy Awards and made its stars world-famous.
Dotrice and Garber would pair up again in The Gnome-Mobile (1967) as the grandchildren of a rich lumber mogul (Walter Brennan) who stumble across a gnome forest and are asked to help keep the gnomes from dying off.
Dotrice would later star as Alex Mackenzie in The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978), her only feature film as an adult.
Television
Moving from the big screen to the small screen in 1971, Dotrice played Lily Hawkins in six episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs; the following year, she appeared as Desiree in the miniseries Napoleon and Love.
After a four-year hiatus, a grown-up Dotrice would return to television as Maria Beadnell in the miniseries Dickens of London (1976). In 1977, she appeared as Pamela in a German series based on the novel, Joseph Andrews; in 1978, Dotrice made her final screen appearance, playing Jenny in the BBC2 Play of the Week, She Fell Among Thieves.
Personal
Dotrice was married to English actor Alex Hyde-White from 1986 to 1992; they produced a son, Garrick. In 1994, Dotrice married then-Universal Studios executive Edwin "Ned" Nalle and gave birth to two children, Isabella and Griffin.
Dotrice is one of three daughters of actor Roy Dotrice; her sisters, Michele and Yvette, are also actresses. Her godfather was actor Charles Laughton.
In 2004, Dotrice was named a Disney Legend.
On Matthew Garber
- "We really didn't stay in touch. I remember his mum, Margot, calling ... to let us know that Matthew had died. That was— so unexpected. ... I wished I had picked up the phone over the years, I wished I had treated him more like a brother; but he's indelibly printed in all of our minds, he's eternal ... an amazing little soul." —from "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: The Making of Mary Poppins" on the Poppins 40th Anniversary Edition DVD
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | The Thirty-Nine Steps | Alex Mackenzie |
| 1967 | The Gnome-Mobile | Elizabeth Winthrop |
| 1964 | Mary Poppins | Jane Banks |
| 1964 | The Three Lives of Thomasina | Mary McDhui |