Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson (born Angeline Brown; September 30, 1931) is a retired American actress. She began her career on television, appearing in many anthology series during the 1950s, before gaining her breakthrough role in Gun the Man Down (1956) with James Arness and the Western film Rio Bravo (1959) with John Wayne and Dean Martin, for which she received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year.

Dickinson has appeared in more than 50 films, including China Gate (1957), Cry Terror! (1958), Ocean's 11 (1960), The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961), Jessica (1962), Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), The Killers (1964), The Art of Love (1965), The Chase (1966), Point Blank (1967), Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), The Outside Man (1972), Big Bad Mama (1974), and Dressed to Kill (1980).

From 1974 to 1978, Dickinson starred as Sergeant "Pepper" Anderson in the NBC crime series Police Woman, for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and three Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nominations. She starred in Brian De Palma's erotic crime thriller Dressed to Kill (1980), for which she received a Saturn Award for Best Actress.

During her later career, Dickinson starred in several television movies and miniseries including Hollywood Wives (1985) and Wild Palms (1993), also playing supporting roles in films such as Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994), Sabrina (1995), Pay It Forward (2000), and Big Bad Love (2001). Her last performance to date was in the Hallmark Channel film Mending Fences (2009).

Early life

Dickinson, the middle of three daughters, was born Angeline Brown (called "Angie" by family and friends) on September 30, 1931, in Kulm, North Dakota, the daughter of Fredericka (née Hehr) and Leo Henry Brown. Her parents were both of German descent, with the family surname originally being "Braun". She was raised Roman Catholic. Her father was a small-town newspaper publisher and editor, working on the Kulm Messenger and the Edgeley Mail. 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.

In 1942, when she was 10 years old, the Brown family moved to Burbank, California, where Angie attended Bellarmine-Jefferson High School, graduating in 1947 at age 15. The previous year, she had won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights essay contest. She then studied at Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, and at Glendale Community College, becoming a business graduate by 1954. Taking a cue from her publisher father, she had intended to be a writer.

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.

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. 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.

On New Year's Eve 1954, Dickinson made her television acting debut in an episode of Death Valley Days. This led to roles in such productions as Matinee Theatre (eight episodes), Buffalo Bill, Jr., City Detective, It's a Great Life (two episodes), Gray Ghost, General Electric Theater, Broken Arrow, The People's Choice (twice), Meet McGraw (twice), Northwest Passage, Gunsmoke, The Virginian, Tombstone Territory, Cheyenne, and The Restless Gun.

In 1956, Dickinson appeared in an episode of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. The next year, she took another small role in Richard Boone's series Have Gun – Will Travel in the episode "A Matter of Ethics".

In 1958, Dickinson 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 (actor)'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 (actor) on January 31, 1965.

First film roles

Dickinson's motion-picture career began with a small, uncredited role in Lucky Me (1954) starring Doris Day, followed by The Return of Jack Slade (1955), Man with the Gun (1955) and Hidden Guns (1956). She had her first starring role in Gun the Man Down (1956) with James Arness, followed by the Sam Fuller cult film China Gate (1957), which depicted an early view of the Vietnam War.

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 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.

Hollywood Leading lady

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 her personal contract with him 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.

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.

Dickinson co-starred in the comedy The Art of Love (1965), playing the love interest of both James Garner and Dick Van Dyke. She joined a star-studded Arthur Penn/Sam Spiegel production, The Chase (1966), along with Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, and Robert Duvall. That same year, she was featured in Cast a Giant Shadow, a war story with Kirk Douglas.

Dickinson's best movie of this era is considered to be John Boorman's cult classic Point Blank (1967), a crime drama with Lee Marvin, a criminal who is out for revenge after being betrayed by his wife and his best friend. The film has been described as epitomizing the stark urban mood of the period, while its reputation has grown through the years.

Westerns continued to be a part of her work in the late 1960s, when she starred in The Last Challenge opposite Glenn Ford, in Young Billy Young with Robert Mitchum, and Sam Whiskey with Burt Reynolds.