[10][11] On 18 April 1908, Dorothy Brunton "made her first appearance on any stage" as a flower girl in Bland Holt's production of The White Heather at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide.

[27][28] After the retirement of the popular performer Fanny Dango, the J. C. Williamson theatrical management company sought to find a replacement with a similar appeal to audiences.

[8][10][38] Her performance "proved quite a surprise packet"; a critic remarked that she "gave a bright, intelligent, and quite charming impersonation of the role" and in the duet with W. Talleur Andrews "she shared the honours of an enthusiastic recall".

[43] In 1912 in Melbourne, after Sybil Arundale became ill, Brunton took on the role of 'Jana Van Buran' in The Girl in the Train, "and delighted the audiences by her charm, bewitching personality and acting ability".

[38][46] Brunton's first major role in a musical comedy was in Autumn Manoeuvres, which opened on 28 June 1913 at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney, presented by J. C. Williamson's New Comic Opera Company.

[54] At the suggestion of a theatrical manager, the patriotic recruiting song 'Your King and Country Want You' was introduced into performances of The Girl on the Film, sung by Dorothy Brunton.

It was initially advertised as having the same cast as the Melbourne production, but Brunton's role in the performances was played by another actress (to the annoyance of a writer for the local Sunday Times newspaper who wrote that "evidently she is considered too good for a one-horse town like Perth").

At the finale of the matinee, Brunton sang 'Your King and Country Want You' "with stirring effect" as "a long file of soldiers and sailors, representing Australia, Great Britain and all the Allies, marched through the stalls, on to the stage and into the wing".

Afterwards, the band and groups of soldiers gathered in Market Street, giving "three cheers" and playing the song 'So Long, Betty' as "Miss Brunton leaned out of her dressing-room window and blew the boys a kiss".

The film, directed by Monte Luke, was an adaption of a stage-play; "a comedy thriller about a practical joke played on a novelist at a lonely country inn".

[80] Dorothy Brunton ("the idol of Musical Comedy lovers") began to appear in Rexona advertisements from December 1916, beginning a longstanding association with the company.

At the finale "paper streamers were flung from all parts of the house to Miss Brunton, and scores of bouquets and floral baskets quickly lined the stage".

Brunton and her mother then travelled to New York by easy stages, where "her Australian reputation led to several offers", but she finally decided on Follow the Girl, a new musical comedy.

[91] Brunton played in Follow the Girl for a fortnight in Philadelphia before she began rehearsals for Ivan Caryll's Madame and her Godson under the management of Klaw and Erlanger in New York.

She explained that she had been "engaged as a low comedienne" based on a mistaken understanding of her Australian roles in So Long Letty and Canary Cottage, in the belief she "had played Connie Ediss' parts".

[93] By mid-July, through an employment agency, Brunton managed to secure a small part as 'Fan Tan' in the operetta Shanghai, to commence in late-August at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

[105] In October 1918, it was reported that Brunton and Ivy Shilling, an Australian dancer also in the cast of Shanghai, "have arranged to present every Anzac" who attended the operetta "with autographed photographs of themselves".

[106] In early January 1918, Brunton took on the major role of 'Marlene de Launay' in the operetta Soldier Boy, playing at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End (replacing the popular actress Winifred Barnes).

She added: "Not long ago I heard of an Australian who, waist deep in Flanders mud, remarked to a comrade: 'I wonder when I shall meet the girl who sang me into this?'".

[117] For her farewell performance in Sydney on 21 October, every seat at the Theatre Royal was booked in advance, despite which crowds gathered "in the vain hope of securing a place".

[138][139] Tons of Money opened at the Grand Opera House in Sydney on 1 March 1924, by which time the play had been transformed into a musical comedy by the inclusion of songs by Brunton, Heslop and another cast member, Andrew Higginson.

[119] In May 1924, towards the end of the Sydney season of Tons of Money, Ward instituted a "souvenir week" at the Grand Opera House where every person attending a performance received an autographed portrait of Dorothy Brunton, printed in three colours.

Ward productions: In January 1925, between performances of The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly, Brunton was photographed by Sam Hood in a professional publicity shoot at St. Margaret's Hospital in Sydney.

Her "capacity for serious stage-work" was confirmed by Post who remarked on opening night in Sydney: "the heroine of the evening had been called upon to show youth and gaiety, a feeling for romance, a sense of tragedy, and charm as a singer, and had surmounted in turn all those difficulties".

[152] In September 1926, Brunton travelled with the Guy Bates Post Company to South Africa aboard the S.S. Ascanius to fulfil an engagement with African Theatres Ltd.

[160] "Theatres in England are experiencing bad times as a result of competition from the talkies"; "Successful shows are chiefly of light comic opera type".

[155] In late December 1930, it was reported that J. C. Williamson Ltd. had secured her services for the lead role in Dearest Enemy, a musical written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, to have its Australian premiere in Sydney in February 1931.

[166][E] On Saturday morning, 15 August 1931, Dorothy Brunton arrived in Melbourne, having travelled by express train from Adelaide, and booked into the Oriental Hotel in Collins Street.

The next day the married couple travelled by motor-car to "a country golf-house" 40 miles from Melbourne, where they stayed for three nights, before returning to the city for Dorothy to attend a rehearsal of Duchess of Danzig.

Clara, the lead role, is the straight-talking owner of a London dockland public-house who discovers she is the legitimate (but abandoned) daughter of the Earl of Drumoor and launches herself in society.