Natalie May Dashett

Natalie May Dashett (May 1916-????) was an American film actress and occasional dancer who attained nominal fame in the radio industry and appeared in more than a hundred motion pictures in a staggeringly short span of 25 years, although seldom as a lead. Her best known credit includes the 1940s serial Dark Pier and the lost film Lovebirds in 1939. She left the film industry in 1951 for reasons unknown and was not heard from again.

She gained substantial publicity in the late 1990s when the Gilman Hotel that she stayed in during the 1940s was revived, and a small cult following of fans who sought answers to her disappearance, which was never extensively investigated by the police. In 2007, documents were reportedly found that may have shone light on her disappearance but they were formerly sealed and not released to the public.

Dashett began her stay as a guest of the Gilman Hotel in 1938 while she was working on Dangerous Freight, where her scenes were shot on location in the nearby large city. She would make her way into the city every morning, and when she was discovered by Roger Graham for the film Lovebirds, he arranged for her housing at the Gilman since it was by major transportation and inexpensive for the time.

When Lovebirds failed to ignite with audiences in 1939, Dashett supported herself with Dark Pier, the mystery radio show that lasted from 1940 to 1942. Dashett went through nearly all of her savings when the radio show was canceled, and despite minor roles in a few films that year, faced eviction.

When the building was bought by Ethan and Joshua Abrams in 1943, they arranged for her to begin doing radio ads for the hotel, beginning in winter of 1943. The radio spots were made in exchange for her residence and the Abrams’, fans of Dark Pier, attempts to capitalize on her would-be fame. It temporally worked, and through the right phone calls, Dashett got several high profile auditions. She was known, by listeners, as the Gilman Girl as eventually no one particularly recognized the name “Natalie May Dashett.”

Dashett failed to turn up for her first day of shooting The Story of Elise at Villeroy Studios on November 11, 1951 at 6am. Producers assumed this was a power play since she had been bumped from the lead only days before, but when they sent a messenger to deliver a telegram and a relevant copy of her contract with the studio, Dashett’s room at the Gilman hotel was found empty. All of Dashett’s personal items were gone, and no letter was left by Dashett to explain her whereabouts.

According to police reports, the bellhop Marty Tildin was quoted as saying he said goodbye to her when she left the hotel with her bags at 11am on November 10, and the maid (unnamed) indicated she served Dashett lunch at her usual time of 2pm. The discrepancy of 3 hours between witness reports and no sign of a struggle in the hotel added up to inconsequential to the police. It was found curious, however, that while the bellhop insisted that Dashett had luggage with her, it seemed unlikely that the room would be completely stripped of every item Dashett and indicated that Dashett must have had assistance moving. Tildin was asked twice if he helped Dashett move, and he said he had not, nor did he see anyone else help her while he made his rounds. Such activity would have required use of the main elevator and the lobby entrance.

The owners of the Gilman, Ethan and Joshua Abrams, indicated Dashett’s account with the hotel was paid up and that while they would miss her as a friend to the Gilman, they wished her only the best.

Inquiries made to Dashett’s known immediate family indicated that Dashett had not been in contact with them in more than a decade and that if she had quit show business, she was not on her way back to Schenectady.

Dashett was never heard from again, and it is presumed that she is still living under an alias well into her 90s, or has since passed. There have been no records of any deceased individuals assumed to be Dashett at the time of their discovery.

In 1954, the Abrams brothers would sell the Gilman after a disaster, and the hotel would go uninhabited until 1997. Upon its reopening, a portrait of Dashett was featured on the first floor, on the way up the main stairs.

(courtesy of the Natalie May Dashett resource center)