Hollywood Icon Angie Dickinson Turns 93

Photo bystarstills.com

Playboy named her one of the “100 Sexiest Stars of the Century.” TV Guide designated her one of the “50 Sexiest TV Stars of All Time." For years, she had her legs insured for $1,000,000. She finally stopped when her advancing age made the premiums too expensive. Her name is Angie Dickinson, she’s now 93, and this is her story.

A Closer Look

Angie Dickinson was born Angeline Brown in Kulm, North Dakota, one of three daughters to Leo Henry and Frederica Brown. Her family owned and operated the North Dakota newspaper offices the Kulm Messenger and, later, the Edgeley Mail in the 1930s. The family moved to California when Angie was around 10 years old.

Dickinson attended and graduated from Bellarmine-Jefferson High School in Burbank, California, at age 15, and later enrolled at the Immaculate Heart College and Glendale Community College.

In 1952, she married college football star Gene Dickinson was a college football star, turned semi-pro. He later moved into the electronics business but they separated in 1956.

Dickinson worked as a secretary at Lockheed Air Terminal (now Bob Hope Airport) and in an airplane parts factory for 3½ years.

Along with Henry Silva, she is one of only two actors to appear in both the 1960 and 2011 editions of Ocean’s Eleven.

Dickinson has appeared in several feature films, two of which are selections for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”: Rio Bravo (1959) and Point Blank (1967).

According to director Steve Carver, Dickinson allowed the entire crew to remain on set during the filming of her extensive nude scenes in Big Bad Mama (1974).

That same year, Dickinson debuted in her career-changed role as Sgt. Pepper Anderson in the NBC-TV hit crime-drama, Police Woman.

Post-Pepper

In 1980, Angie Dickinson had initially declined to play the ill-fated, sexually frustrated Kate Miller in Dressed to Kill because she felt her role as Sgt. Pepper Anderson in Police Woman had made her into something of a role model. Director Brian De Palma, however, eventually persuaded her to accept the part.

In 1981, she rejected the role of Krystle Carrington on the prime-time soap Dynasty, which went to Linda Evans.

That same year, Dickinson was supposed to guest-star on another prime-time soap, this time, Falcon Crest, playing Jane Wyman’s long-lost daughter. But that never happened.

Six years later, Dickinson was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, CA.

Personal Experience

Separated from Burt Bacharach on September 12, 1976, Angie Dickinson did not file for divorce until 1980.

Some of her other romantic liaisons over the years were Frank Sinatra and Johnny Carson.