Dorothy Lawson Led Life As Exciting As Those She Portrayed On Screen

The kinds of experiences that filled Dorothy Lawson's life were the kinds that make for movies.

Her first husband died in her arms, only an hour from port in New York, of the dangerous form of malaria he'd contracted while they were living in Africa.

The beautiful young widow then was courted by a European count, was married to a Spanish diplomat and then to an American prizefighter, and finally settled down to a state of suburban bliss in Seattle's Windermere area.

There she spent the past half-century, still remembered for her starring roles in a dozen silent films of the 1920s, and a life as exciting as those she'd portrayed on the silver screen.

Mrs. Lawson died Friday at age 90 at the Anderson Nursing Home in Seattle.

She was born Edith Augusta Dunbar on May 28, 1902 in Cripple Creek, Colo., and became a celebrated actress in silent movies. Her stage name was Dorothy Dunbar.

Among her most famous roles were Lady Cleone Meredith in "The Amateur Gentleman," with Richard Barthelmess in 1926; "Flaming Crisis" with Calvin Nicholson in 1924; "Masquerade Bandit" with cowboy star Tom Tyler in 1926; and "Lightning Lariats" with Tyler, Frankie Darro and Ruby Blaine in 1927.

In 1926, she played Jane in "Tarzan and the Golden Lion." The fourth Jane in the movies, her co-star was James Pierce, who married the daughter of Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Despite her success after leaving the Colorado farm (over her

mother's objections) to make movies, the young starlet gave it all up to marry Bucklin Wells II, and to live on an African rubber plantation. Less than three years later, Wells died while the couple was steaming home to New York Harbor.

She later was married to Tino Costa, a Hollywood painter; Jaime Gerson y Baretto, the Spanish diplomat; and Max Baer, heavyweight boxing champion.

Her seventh, and last, marriage, was to Russell Lawson, a Seattle flight pioneer, with whom she settled in Windermere in 1937.

Pioneers of Windermere, as well, the Lawsons became local bridge champs.

In 1979, Mrs. Lawson told a Seattle Times interviewer that she might have made it in talking pictures had she chosen a different path. After her marriage to Baer ended, she was offered a contract by MGM to play opposite the noted John Gilbert. Instead, she chose a long-term contract with a British company, only to see the studio burn down and never reopen.

She happily displayed scrapbooks and told about polo matches with Will Rogers and Spencer Tracy, luncheons with Baron Rothschild, and drama classes with Joan Blondell and Bette Davis.

Her last husband died in 1965. She is survived by the couple's twin sons, Richard Wendell Lawson, a Seattle architect, and Russell Edward Lawson, a painter and owner of the Lawson Gallery in Seattle. Also surviving are six grandchildren.

A private service is planned.