Dear Dodie

Despite the Disney version of Smith's Hundred and One Dalmatians, Grove, a London journalist, acknowledges here that her subject is ""essentially limited."" A second-rate actress, Smith (1896-1990) became a shopgirl and after-hours writer, turning out a clever comedy, Autumn Crocus, that altered her life in 1931. She acquired a younger companion who remained with her devotedly as husband and business manager. For all his usefulness, however, Alec Beasley was the cause of her fading as a writer, according to Grove. A pacifist, he could not remain in England as war threatened in 1939 so Smith and Beasley left for Los Angeles, where she did hack writing for films and lost her bearings as a playwright. A dog lover in the extreme, she rescued her finances with Dalmatians, about which rival children's author John Rowe Townsend remarked, ""If dogs could read, they would be unable to put it down."" A strained chattiness emanates from Grove's book, making it easy to put down. Photos. (June)