[3] In 1909, the year before she married George Henry Battier, Jr.,[4] Dorothy Gibson began posing for famous commercial artist Harrison Fisher, becoming one of his favorite models.

Represented by top theatrical agent Pat Casey, Dorothy entered movies in early 1911, joining the Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) as an extra and later the Lubin Studios as a stock player.

[7] Praised for a natural, subtle acting style, she was particularly effective as a comedian in such popular one-reelers as Miss Masquerader (1911) and Love Finds a Way (1912), all of which were produced at Fort Lee, New Jersey, then the center of the burgeoning American motion picture industry.

[8] Despite her popularity in comedies, one of Dorothy's most important parts was that of Molly Pitcher in the historical drama Hands Across the Sea (1911), Eclair Studios' debut vehicle and Gibson's first star turn.

[15] Dorothy Gibson's other accomplishments in early cinema included starring in one of the first feature films made in the United States (Hands Across the Sea, 1911), co-starring in the first American-produced serial or chapter play (The Revenge of the Silk Masks, 1912), and making one of the first-ever public appearances by a movie personality (January 1912).

Dorothy left movies to pursue a choral career,[17] her most notable appearance in that venue being at the Metropolitan Opera House in Madame Sans-Gene (1915).

In 1911, Dorothy Gibson began a six-year love affair with married movie tycoon Jules Brulatour, head of distribution for Eastman Kodak and co-founder of Universal Pictures.

To escape gossip and start a new life, Dorothy left New York for Paris, where she remained, except for the four years she spent in Italy during World War II.

The trio was aided through the intervention of Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, Archbishop of Milan, and by a young chaplain of the Milanese resistance group Fiamme Verdi, Father Giovanni Barbareschi.

The character of Susan Alexander in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) may have been partly based on Dorothy, along with other real-life figures Marion Davies, Hope Hampton, and Ganna Walska.