Plain, angular Doro Merande was one of those delightful character actresses you couldn't take your eyes off of, no matter how minuscule the part. She excelled at playing older than she was -- doting aunts, inveterate gossips, curt secretaries and small-minded townspeople -- all topped with an amusing warble in her voice and bristly eccentric edge. Too bad then that she wasn't used more in films, but she preferred live theater and based herself for the most part on the East Coast. She was born Dora Matthews in Kansas in 1892 and orphaned as a child. Growing up in boarding schools, she headed to New York and pursued an acting career immediately after finishing her education. She appeared long and hard on the stock stage before making it on Broadway at age 43. She settled there sparking over 25 Broadway plays in her lifetime, including a scene-stealing turn in the classic Thorton Wilder play "Our Town" which brought her to Hollywood to preserve the role on film. On and off she remained a delightful film and TV cameo player with roles in _The Gazebo on his variety show. She died, in fact, of a stroke while there in Miami to film an episode.
Entered motion pictures in 1940 after a career in the New York theater.
Doro Merande (nee Dora Matthews) appeared in 25 Broadway plays, most famously as the old lady who "loved weddings" in the original 1938 production of "Our Town". This part brought her to Hollywood in 1940.
Worked under her real name, Dora Matthews, in many films in the early 1930s, before changing her professional name to Doro Merande; not to be confused with Dorothy Mathews, a younger WB contractee of the same period.
