From “My Lunches with Orson” Edited by Peter Biskind:
Interviewer: Dorothy Comingore, another fresh face, was so great as Susan Alexander, Kane’s mistress and second wife, the one based on Marion Davies. How did you find her?
Orson Welles: Chaplin, you know, told me about her.
Interviewer: What was she in?
OW: Nothing. He just found her. He’d seen her in some little play or something. Her singing “Come and Go,” was a real fabricated performance, because we sprayed her throat before every take with some dangerous chemical that made her hoarse. Her performance as the younger version of the wife was herself. The older one was chemical….
Interviewer: So, what happened to Comingore?
OW: For two or three years she just refused everything, waiting for another Susan Alexander. Well, you know, those parts don’t come along so often.
Interviewer: God, in a way, it’s the worst thing that can happen, to get that at the beginning of your career, isn’t it?
OW…Everybody loved her in “Kane,” so she was in a good situation. She had that pathos that could turn into bitchiness because it came from insecurity and vulgarity. She ended up, you know, being arrested for prostitution. She was picking up people in bars. It was tragic.
Interviewer: I recall she was married to screenwriter Richard Collins, who told HUAC he divorced her because she refused to name names. She was blacklisted in 1951, which ended her career
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