Emily confirms the love between Dorothy and Roger during that period. “Dorothy loved Roger, there’s no doubt about that. If you love somebody you want to make them happy and she wanted to make Roger happy. Roger wanted to get into films so Dorothy sold some property she owned to finance the move to the United States. She certainly put all the mechanisms in place for him to pursue his ambitions. Roger wasn’t the greatest actor in the world – and he is usually the first to admit it – but Dorothy certainly helped to make him a star.
“Later, unfortunately, Roger had an affair with an American actress called Dorothy Provine, and Dorothy subsequently found out about it. She was told that there was nothing really serious between Roger and Provine, and maybe if Dorothy had turned a blind eye to the matter then things might not have started to go wrong. As it was, it proved to be the beginning of the end. There was even one occasion when Dorothy locked Roger out of their house, and he had to sleep on a lounger in the garden! I personally had no inkling that there was anything seriously wrong, although I did hear them shouting sometimes when I was staying at their home and lying in my bed at night”
Dorothy’s sister-in-law Joyce Golding adds: “Dorothy’s heart must have ached after he left her because, for a long time, they did have a very happy and successful marriage. He was a nice man – no one could say anything nasty about him because there was no nastiness in him.”© 2004 www.dorothysquires.co.uk
