Angie Dickinson Biography

Angeline Brown was the second of four daughters of Leo H Brown and Frederica born in North Dakota. Her family called her Angie for short.

A young beauty contest winner, Angie won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest, which was an annual essay-writing contest, while a senior at Burbank's Bellamarine Jefferson High.

It was her success in beauty contests that made her give up her childhood dreams of becoming a writer, as she wanted to follow in her father's footprints who was a newspaper editor and publisher. After gaining a business degree at college, she worked as a secretary for Burbank Airplane Parts Factory for several years.

Angie acquired her professional name Angie Dickinson when she married the college football star Gene Dickinson. They divorced in 1960. From 1966 to 1980 however, she was to be married to composer Burt Bacharach.

In 1953, she entered the local Miss America contest, one day before the deadline, and took second place. In August the same year, as one of five NBC beauty contest winners, she appeared in various variety shows on the network.

Her first bit-part in a film arrived in the Warner Bros musical 'Lucky Me' in 1954, and she spent the next few years in B-movie westerns, and television, where she enjoyed some success in the show 'Millionaire', in 1956. Roles over these years included parts in 'The Return of Jack Slade' (1955), 'Gun the Man Down' 1956) and 'China Gate' (1957).

To avoid being typecast like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield as a platinum blonde sex-bomb she allowed her film studio to darken her natural locks to a honey blonde shade.

When Howard Hawks asked her to play the female lead in 'Rio Bravo', her big break had finally come. The role allowed Dickinson to exhibit her celebrated legs, which, in what is now a common practice, were insured by Lloyds of London.

Dickinson started the 1960s starring in 'The Bramble Bush' with Richard Burton and 'Ocean's 11' with her two friends Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra.

Her feature films range from the well-known 'Sabrina' (1995), 'Point Blank' (1967) and 'The Killers' (1964) (in which she played the moll to Ronald Reagan's gangster) to the forgettable - 'Big Bad Mama' (1974) and 'The Sins of Rachel Cade' (1961).

In 1974, with her career flagging, she concentrated on television, starring in the adventure series 'Police Woman', which lasted four seasons. Other TV appearances have included stints in 'Overboard', 'Wild Palms' (1993) and 'Hollywood Wives'. She made a notable performance in the film 'Dressed to Kill' in 1980 before returning to TV in the show 'Cassie & Co' in 1982.

During the 1990s, Dickinson appeared in the films 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues', 'Sabrina', 'The Maddening' and 'The Don's Analyst'.

More recently she appeared in 'Pay it Forward' (2000), in which she stars alongside Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. In 2001, she made a cameo appearance in the remake of 'Ocean's 11' as a boxing spectator.

In the summer of 2004, Dickinson revealed her love for poker and appeared on the second season of Bravo's 'Celebrity Poker Showdown'. She also starred in an episode of 'Judging Amy' the same year.

Dickinson last starred in the TV movie 'Mending Fences' in 2009.