Biography

A graduate of the University of Montana, Dorothy Marie Johnson left her widowed mother in Whitefish, Montana and moved to New York City, where she worked as a writer and an editor of women's magazines. In 1950, she returned to Whitefish and edited the local paper for three years; she then joined the faculty of the University of Montana School of Journalism. She subsequently published seventeen books and fifty-two short stories, all primarily about the American West.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jane Margaret Laight

Dorothy Marie Johnson was the only daughter of Lester Eugene Johnson and Mary Louisa Barlow. Soon after her birth, the family moved to Montana. She graduated from the University of Montana in 1928. Her writing career really began in 1930, when she sold her first short story to The Saturday Evening Post for $400. It took eleven years for another sale when she sold four stories narrated by a recurring character, "Beulah Bunny" to The Saturday Evening Post for $2,100. Her writing was temporarily halted by World War II, when she went to work for the Air Warden Service. Johnson taught creative writing at the University of Montana from 1956 to 1960. She wrote articles and stories based on interviews with Native Americans, and characters she met during her tenure as secretary and researcher for the Montana Historical Society. She was also secretary/manager of the Montana Press Association in the 1950s.
- IMDb mini biography by: John T. Aquino

Her stories formed the basis for thee films--"The Hanging Tree," "The Man Who Shot LIberty Valance," and "A Man Called Horse"--that are widely regarded as western film classics.

In 1957, the Western Writers of America gave her its highest award, the Spur Award, for "Lost Sister", a short story in The Hanging Tree collection. In 1959, she was made an honorary member of the Blackfoot Tribe.

When she died of Parkingson's Disease in 1984, the New York Times revealed that she had left instructions that the only word on he tombstone be "PAID IN FULL." She commented, "God and I know what it means. And there is really no reason why anyone else should know." Her grave in the cemetery in Whitefish, Montana, reads simply "PAID." It is assumed that the words are a self-tribute to her self-sufficiency.

In 2005, Sue Hart of Montana State University in Billings made a 30-minute documentary of Dorothy M. Johnson's life titled "Gravel i her Gut and Spit in her Eye." It was shown on PBS in November 2005.