Angie Dickinson

One of three daughters born 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 she was around 10 years old.

Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger.

The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California.

In December of 1946, when she was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest. Two years later her sister Janet, did likewise. Being the daughter of a printer, Angie at first had visions of becoming a writer, but gave this up after winning her first beauty contest. After finishing college she worked as a secretary in a Burbank airplane parts factory for 3-1/2 years.

Attended and graduated from Bellarmine-Jefferson High School in Burbank, California, at age 15, in 1947.

In 1953 she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took second place. In August of the same year she was one of five winners in a beauty contest sponsored by NBC and appeared in several TV variety shows.

First husband Gene Dickinson was a college football star, turned semi-pro. He later moved into the electronics business but they separated in 1956 after four years of marriage.

She has appeared in two films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Rio Bravo (1959) and Point Blank (1967).

Along with Henry Silva, she is one of only two actors to appear in both Ocean's 11 (1960) and its remake Ocean's Eleven (2001).

In the same situation as Julie London, Dickinson had to take a break from the movies, in 1967, to become a stay-at-home mother to Nikki, full-time, due to her daughter's problems. She resumed her acting career, a year later.

Was almost 40 when she appeared naked onscreen for the first time in Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971). As a younger woman she could not have done this due to the Hays Code, which wasn't dissolved until 1967. Yet when offered the chance to pose for Playboy, she turned it down.

Sam Peckinpah considered her for the role of Carol McCoy in The Getaway (1972).

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

Separated from Burt Bacharach on September 12, 1976 but didn't file for divorce until 1980.

Said she initially declined to play the ill-fated, sexually frustrated Kate Miller in Dressed to Kill (1980) because she felt her role on the television series Police Woman (1974) had made her into something of a role model, but director Brian De Palma eventually persuaded her to accept the role.

Turned down the role of Krystle Carrington on the soap opera Dynasty (1981), which went to Linda Evans.

Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on September 10, 1987.

In 1993, she became the first and only This Is Your Life (1950) honoree to refuse to do the retrospective show. Friends, acquaintances, and co-workers from her career were waiting to regale viewers with their memories of Dickinson, but as part of the program's format, honorees were never told in advance. She had been lured to a studio on the pretext that she was appearing in a tribute to Brian De Palma, who had directed her in Dressed to Kill (1980). When Ralph Edwards, the show's host, walked on stage and said, "Angie Dickinson, this is your life!" she responded, "F*** no, I won't do it.".

Ranked #42 on Playboy magazine's "100 Sexiest Stars of the Century". [January 1999]

Ranked #3 in TV Guide's "50 Sexiest TV Stars of All Time" list. [2002]

Her daughter (with Burt Bacharach), Nikki Bacharach, died at age 40 on January 4, 2007 of suicide in Ventura County, California. She was born prematurely on July 12, 1966 and battled Asperger's disorder, a form of autism.

After her role in Mending Fences (2009), she retired from acting at age 77.