Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#133913
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Dorothy Vaughan works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Dorothy Vaughan appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dorothy. The Lady from Shanghai is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Orson Welles, Henry Koster, René Clair and others, Dorothy Vaughan helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
The Lady from Shanghai (1947) as Old Woman (uncredited) · The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) as Mrs. Johnson (uncredited) · The Bishop's Wife (1947) as Delia
Career snapshot
Ranked #133913 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1939–1947
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
The Lady from Shanghai
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Lady from Shanghai
Most frequent director
Orson Welles
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Orson Welles
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 24m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.3
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Young Mr. Lincoln — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Young Mr. Lincoln.
Most productive era
1940s
6 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 6.93 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.72 films |
| Crime | — | 7.01 film |
| Romance | — | 6.83 films |
| Horror | — | 5.82 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Apple Pie Baker (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Delia.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
7 of 7 films
as Old Woman (uncredited)
Directed by Orson Welles
as Mrs. Johnson (uncredited)
Directed by Orson Welles
as Delia
Directed by Henry Koster
as Apple Pie Baker (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
Directed by René Clair
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Old Woman (uncredited)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Old Woman (uncredited) gives Dorothy Vaughan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mrs. Johnson (uncredited)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Performance score6.9
The Magnificent Ambersons asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mrs. Johnson (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Delia
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Performance score6.7
The Bishop's Wife asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Delia is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Apple Pie Baker (uncredited)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Performance score6.7
Young Mr. Lincoln asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Apple Pie Baker (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Old Woman (uncredited)
Start here. The Lady from Shanghai is the clearest statement of what Dorothy Vaughan does — accessible, 87 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dorothy at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
Keeps the drama register of The Lady from Shanghai but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Keeps the drama register of Young Mr. Lincoln but asks for a colder reading of it.
It Happened Tomorrow (1944)
Keeps the romance register of The Magnificent Ambersons but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Keeps the romance register of It Happened Tomorrow but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Orson Welles
Director
2 films together
Notably The Lady from Shanghai
John Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably Young Mr. Lincoln
William Nigh
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ape
Reginald Le Borg
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy's Ghost
René Clair
Director
1 film together
Notably It Happened Tomorrow
Henry Koster
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bishop's Wife
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Orson Welles
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Lady from ShanghaiHenry Koster
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bishop's WifeJohn Ford
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Young Mr. LincolnRené Clair
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
It Happened TomorrowReginald Le Borg
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Mummy's GhostWilliam Nigh
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ApeSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Bishop's Wife
as Delia
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Magnificent Ambersons
as Mrs. Johnson (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Magnificent Ambersons
as Mrs. Johnson (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
It Happened Tomorrow
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Dorothy Vaughan has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Bishop's Wife
as Delia
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Lady from Shanghai
as Old Woman (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Bishop's Wife
as Delia
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Ape
as Mother Clifford
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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