Dickinson, the middle of three daughters, was born Angeline Brown (called "Angie" by family and friends) on September 30, 1931,[1] in Kulm, North Dakota, the daughter of Fredericka (née Hehr) and Leo Henry Brown.[2]
Her parents were both of German descent, with the family surname originally being "Braun". She was raised Roman Catholic.[3] Her father was a small-town newspaper publisher and editor, working on the Kulm Messenger and the Edgeley Mail.[4] She fell in love with movies at an early age, as her father was also the projectionist at the town's only movie theater until it burned down.[5]
While a student during 1950–1952, she worked as a secretary at Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank (now Bob Hope Airport) and in a parts factory. She became Angie Dickinson in 1952, when she married football player Gene Dickinson.[citation needed]
Career
Early television career
Dickinson came in second at a local preliminary for the Miss America contest, and that got the attention of a casting agent, who landed her a spot as one of six showgirls on The Jimmy Durante Show.[7] The exposure brought her to the attention of a television-industry producer, who asked her to consider a career in acting. She studied the craft and a few years later was approached by NBC to guest-star on a number of variety shows, including The Colgate Comedy Hour. She soon met Frank Sinatra, who became a lifelong friend.
Angie Dickinson wore yellowface to play a Chinese-European character in China Gate (1957).[8]
In 1958, she was cast as Laura Meadows in the episode "The Deserters" of an ABC/Warner Bros. Western series, Colt .45, with Wayde Preston. That year, she also played the role of defendant Mrs. Fargo in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the One-Eyed Witness".
Dickinson went on to create memorable characters in Mike Hammer, Wagon Train, and Men into Space. In 1965, she had a recurring role as Carol Tredman on NBC's Dr. Kildare. She had a role as the duplicitous murder conspirator in a 1964 episode of The Fugitive series with David Janssen and fellow guest star Robert Duvall. She played an unfaithful wife and bank robber in the 1958 "Wild Blue Yonder" episode of Rod Cameron's syndicated television series State Trooper. She starred in two Alfred Hitchcock Hour episodes, "Captive Audience" with James Mason on October 18, 1962, and "Thanatos Palace Hotel" with Steven Hill on January 31, 1965.
Rejecting the Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield style of platinum blonde sex symbolism, because she felt it would narrow her acting options, Dickinson initially allowed studios to lighten her naturally brunette hair to only honey-blonde. She appeared early in her career mainly in B-movies or Westerns, including Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957), in which she co-starred with Randolph Scott and James Garner. In the crime drama Cry Terror! (1958), Dickinson had a supporting role opposite James Mason and Rod Steiger as a femme fatale.
Dickinson's big-screen breakthrough role came in Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959), in which she played a flirtatious gambler called "Feathers", who becomes attracted to the town sheriff played by Dickinson's childhood idol John Wayne. The film co-starred Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, and Walter Brennan.
When Hawks sold his personal contract with her to a major studio without her knowledge, she was unhappy. Dickinson nonetheless became one of the more prominent leading ladies of the next decade, beginning with film The Bramble Bush with Richard Burton. She also took a supporting role in Ocean's 11 (1960) with friends Sinatra and Martin.[10]
These were followed by a political potboiler, A Fever in the Blood (1961); a Belgian Congo-based melodrama, The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961), in which she played a missionary nurse tempted by lust; a scheming woman in Rome Adventure (1962), filmed in Italy; and the title role in Jean Negulesco's Jessica (1962) with Maurice Chevalier, in which she played a young midwife resented by the married women of the town, set in Sicily. Angie also shared the screen with friend Gregory Peck as a military nurse in the dark comedy Captain Newman, M.D. (1963).
For The Killers (1964), originally intended to be the first made-for-television movie, but released to theaters due to its violent content and entertainment value, Dickinson played a femme fatale opposite future U.S. President Ronald Reagan in his last movie role. Directed by Don Siegel, it was a remake of the 1946 version based on a story by Ernest Hemingway and the only film Reagan made in which he was cast as a villain. He viciously slaps Dickinson in one of the film's scenes.[11]
Dickinson's best movie of this era is reputed to be John Boorman's cult classic Point Blank (1967), a crime drama with Lee Marvin as a criminal betrayed by his wife and best friend and out for revenge. The film epitomized the stark urban mood of the period, and its reputation has grown through the years.[12]
In 1971, she played a lascivious substitute high-school teacher in the dark comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row which also starred Rock Hudson and Telly Savalas, for director Roger Vadim and writer-producer Gene Roddenberry. In the film, her character seduces a sexually inexperienced student, portrayed by John David Carson, against the backdrop of a series of murders of female students at the same high school. Pretty Maids All In A Row drew hostile critical reviews, and was a box-office failure.[13]
One of Dickinson's best-known and most sexually provocative movie roles followed, that of the tawdry widow Wilma McClatchie from the Great Depression romp Big Bad Mama (1974) with William Shatner and Tom Skerritt. In her 40s at the time, she appeared nude in several scenes, which created interest in the movie and a new generation of male fans for Dickinson.[15]
A 1966 Esquire cover gained Dickinson additional fame and notoriety, her having posed in nothing but a sweater and a pair of panty hose. The photo became so iconic, that while celebrating the magazine's 70th anniversary in 2003, the Dickinson pose was recreated for the cover by Britney Spears.[16]
Dickinson returned to the small screen in March 1974 for an episode of the critically acclaimed hit anthology series Police Story. The guest appearance proved to be so popular, NBC offered Dickinson her own television show, which became a ground-breaking weekly series called Police Woman; it was the first successful dramatic TV series to feature a woman in the title role. At first, Dickinson was reluctant, but when producers told her she could become a household name, she accepted the role. It co-starred Earl Holliman as Sergeant Bill Crowley, Anderson's commanding officer, along with Charles Dierkop as investigator Pete Royster and Ed Bernard as investigator Joe Styles. In the series, Dickinson played Sergeant "Pepper" Anderson, an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department's Criminal Conspiracy Unit, who often works undercover. The series became a hit, reaching number one in many countries in which it aired during its first year. It ran for four seasons and Dickinson won a Golden Globe Award, and received Emmy Award nominations for Best Lead Actress in a Dramatic Series three consecutive years. However, in a 2019 interview, Dickinson said that she regretted having done the series, since the remuneration was inadequate and it left her with little time for other projects.[17]
Dickinson acknowledged her sex symbol role, stating "Are my legs exploited? Well, that's all I have got to sell". While observing that "essentially a woman's job is being a woman", she disliked repeatedly doing Police Woman scenes "where the phone rings while I'm taking a bath".[18] In 1978, the same year the show ended, Dickinson reprised her Pepper Anderson character on the television special Ringo, co-starring with Ringo Starr and John Ritter. She also parodied the role in the 1975 and 1979 Bob Hope Christmas specials for NBC. She did the same years later on the 1987 Christmas episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live.
According to Dickinson, Police Woman caused a surge of applications for employment from women to police departments around the United States.[19]
Dickinson and Police Woman influenced later female-starring, hour-long TV series such as Charlie's Angels,[18]Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman, and Cagney & Lacey. In 1987, the Los Angeles Police Department awarded Dickinson an honorary doctorate, which led her to quip, "Now you can call me Doctor Pepper."
On occasion during the 1970s, Dickinson took part in the popular Dean Martin Celebrity Roast on television, and she was the guest of honor on August 2, 1977, roasted by a dais of celebrities that included James Stewart, Orson Welles, and her Police Woman series co-star Earl Holliman.
The 1980s
Having done a television series plus the miniseries Pearl (1978) about the Pearl Harbor bombing of 1941, Dickinson's career in feature films appeared to be in decline, but she returned to the big screen in Brian De Palma's erotic thriller Dressed to Kill (1980), for which she gained considerable notice, particularly for a long, silent scene in a museum before the character meets her fate. The role of Kate Miller, a sexually frustrated New York housewife, earned her a 1981 Saturn Award for Best Actress. "The performers are excellent," wrote Vincent Canby in his July 25, 1980 The New York Times review, "especially Miss Dickinson."
She took a less substantial role in Death Hunt (1981), which reunited her with Lee Marvin, and also appeared in Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. Earlier that year, she had been the first choice to play the character Krystle Carrington on the television series Dynasty, but deciding she wanted to spend more time with her daughter, she turned it down; the role instead went to Linda Evans.[20] In the mid-1980s, Dickinson declined the role of Sable Colby on the Dynasty spin-off, The Colbys.[21]
After turning down her own Johnny Carson-produced prospective sitcom, The Angie Dickinson Show, in 1980 after only two episodes had been shot because she did not feel she was funny enough, the private-eye series Cassie & Co. became her unsuccessful attempt at a television comeback. She then starred in several television movies, such as One Shoe Makes It Murder (1982), Jealousy (1984), A Touch of Scandal (1984), and Stillwatch (1987). She had a pivotal role in the highly rated miniseries Hollywood Wives (1985), based on a novel by Jackie Collins.
In 1982, and again in 1986, Dickinson appeared in two of Perry Como's Christmas specials for the ABC television network, in both of which she did something she was not known to have done before: singing. Dickinson later denied having sung on camera since the two Como specials in an interview with Larry King, which he conducted at the approximate time of her appearance in Duets.
In motion pictures, Dickinson reprised her role as Wilma McClatchie for Big Bad Mama II (1987) and completed the television movie Kojak: Fatal Flaw, in which she was reunited with Telly Savalas. She co-starred with Willie Nelson and numerous buddies in the television Western Once Upon a Texas Train (1988).
She was presented one of the Golden Boot Awards in 1989 for her contributions to Western cinema.
Having appeared in the original Ocean's 11 (1960) with good friends Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, four decades later, she made a brief cameo in the 2001 remake with George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
An avid poker player, during the summer of 2004, she participated in the second season of Bravo'sCelebrity Poker Showdown. After announcing her name, host Dave Foley said, "Sometimes, when we say 'celebrity', we actually mean it." Also in 2004, Dickinson appeared in the comedy Elvis Has Left the Building, playing an ex-mechanic and the mother of Kim Basinger's character.
In 1999, Playboy ranked Dickinson number 42 on their list of the "100 Sexiest Stars of the Century". In 2002, TV Guide ranked her number three on a list of the "50 Sexiest Television Stars of All Time", behind Diana Rigg and George Clooney (who tied for number one).
In 2009, Dickinson starred in a Hallmark Channel drama, Mending Fences co-starring Laura Leighton. It is her last acting credit to date.
Personal life
With husband, the composer Burt Bacharach and new-born Nikki, 1966
Dickinson was married to Gene Dickinson, a college football player who later moved into the electronics business, from 1952 to 1960, though they separated in 1956.[23] During her first marriage, Dickinson became close friends with John Kenneth Galbraith and Catherine Galbraith. Her extensive visits to them and her touring when Galbraith was U.S. Ambassador to India are amply recounted in his memoirs Ambassador's Journal and A Life in Our Times.[24]
Dickinson kept her married name after her first divorce. She married Burt Bacharach in 1965. They remained a married couple for 16 years, though late in their marriage they had a period of separation during which they dated other people.[25][18] Bacharach and Dickinson had a daughter named Nikki (born July 12, 1966), who was autistic. Nikki died by suicide on January 4, 2007.[26] The elder Bacharach died in 2023.[27]
In 2023, Dickinson stated that she had a 20-year on-and-off affair with Frank Sinatra, and that he was the love of her life and "one of the most charismatic men that ever was" .[28][5][18][29] Dickinson had a relationship with musician Billy Vera in the 1980s and appeared in the music video for his single "I Can Take Care of Myself".[30] For several years in the 1990s, Dickinson dated radio and television interviewer Larry King. In a 2006 interview with NPR, Dickinson stated that she was a Democrat.[31] She campaigned for Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960 and supported Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.[4][18][32]
^ abKashner, Sam (January 2008). "A Legend with Legs". Vanity Fair. Archived from the original on April 16, 2015. Also, Report of the County Chairman by James Michener
^ ab"I grew up going to movies, my daddy was the projectionist, so we got in for free." Interview with Mo Rocca for profile on CBS Sunday Morning, aired February 24, 2019.
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