...Dolly Tree almost exclusively designed for Myrna Loy, MGM's leading female star by the
mid 1930's with a total of at least 17 credits
including the smash hits Libelled Lady
and Wife Versus Secretary (also starring Jean Harlow)
and a string of classic Thin Man productions.

In 1930 Dolly Tree abandoned New York and her stage career for Hollywood and was signed to Fox studios by Winfield Sheehan. Her stay at Fox was brief, although she did create a fascinating futuristic wardrobe for the first science fiction musical Just Imagine, (1930) starring Maureen O'Sullivan, dressed Bad Girl, given a Academy Award for best direction in 1931 and designed for Janette MacDonald in Annabelle's Affairs (1931) and the Will Roger's extravaganza Business and Pleasure (1931). Although she was initially assistant designer, when Sophie Wachner left in early 1931 she became sole designer for a short while on a salary of $350 per week. During her stay at Fox Dolly Tree met Thomas Kimes a dashing naval officer of the same age whom she married in May 1931. It was a happy marriage but having a naval husband had problems, namely that he spent little time at home - an issue that gradually eroded the marriage over time and eventually culminated in divorce nine years later.

After leaving Fox it has been suggested that she designed the period wardrobe for the lavish Hal Roach production of Laurel and Hardy's Fra Diavolo (The Devil's Brother) with Thelma Todd and there are tantalising clues that in fact she may have re-designed the costumes for Mae West in Paramount's adaptation of Diamond Lil, She Done Him Wrong, although Edith Head claimed credit.

In the spring of 1933 she was appointed as a designer at MGM where she remained until 1941 working alongside Adrian. Dolly Tree brought an elegant Parisian sensibility to MGM reflecting her taste for simplicity and modernism and contrary to much misinformation from the outset worked with some of MGM's biggest stars and biggest releases.

Whilst Adrian dressed Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, Dolly Tree almost exclusively designed for Myrna Loy, MGM's leading female star by the mid 1930's with a total of at least 17 credits including the smash hits Libelled Lady and Wife Versus Secretary (also starring Jean Harlow) and a string of classic Thin Man productions. She worked on several David Selznick's productions completing such blockbusters as David Copperfield, Viva Villa and A Tale of Two Cities. She dressed Jean Harlow in six movies including her last Saratoga. She created the authentic Chinese wardrobe for Irving Thalberg's The Good Earth. She dressed all the Marx Brothers comedies with a fabulous array of gowns for Margaret Dumont. She also designed for many of MGM's other leading ladies such as Gladys George, Helen Hayes, Virginia Bruce, Luise Rainer, Rosalind Russell, Lana Turner, Ann Rutherford, Madge Evans, Ruth Hussey and Rita Johnson and visiting stars such as Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, Evelyn Laye, Cicely Courtneidge, Dolores Del Rio and Janet Gaynor. In the late 1930's she began designing the costumes for a string of popular and successful Judy Garland movies including Strike Up the Band and Babes in Arms.

Considerable misinformation surrounds Dolly Tree's time at MGM and stems from the fact that she was a woman and also because she was not assertive about her own publicity. The excellence of MGM's publicity machine (which virtually completely ignored her) has relegated her to a position of relative unimportance at the expense of glittering praise for Adrian. Adrian's legacy, carefully propagated during the 1930's by MGM's publicity department has evolved into a cult or perhaps even a myth and many have fallen prey to its rhetoric. As a result her fine work and achievements have been inadvertently undervalued and forgotten and it is about time that she was given the attention that she so richly deserves.

In late 1939 her first marriage faltered and she was divorced in late 1940. She became depressed and drank heavily and this was no doubt the cause of her departure from MGM at about this time. In late 1941, she must have been sufficiently recuperated to return to Fox, now called Twentieth Century Fox for a short period and under the aegis of Gwen Wakeling, designed the wardrobe for at least six pictures. In the midst of this contract she met and married her second husband Don E. Whiteford but things did not work out and they were divorced. This and the death of her father in spring of 1942 must have caused her departure from Fox and the catalyst driving her further toward alcoholism.