| Angie Dickinson Biography |
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 Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm - 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, CA. In December of 1946, when Angie was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, winning the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest in that community.
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 for Burbank Airplane Parts Factory for 3 1/2 years. In 1953, she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took 2nd. 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. |
Angeline Brown acquired her professional name Angie Dickinson when she married college football star Gene Dickinson. Dickinson entered films with an unbilled bit in the 1954 Warner Bros. musical “Lucky Me.” Her earliest films consisted mostly of "B" Westerns (at one point, she dubbed in actress Sarita Montiel's voice in 1957's “Run of the Arrow”) and television (Dickinson was rather nastily murdered in very first episode of “Mike Hammer”). She moved to the A-list when selected by Howard Hawks to play the female lead in “Rio Bravo” (1958) with Dean Martin. The film gave Dickinson ample opportunity to display her celebrated legs, which, for publicity purposes, were insured by Lloyd's of London.
She went on to star in films both famous and forgettable: one of the roles for which she is best remembered is as the mistress of gangster Ronald Reagan in “The Killers” (1964). In 1974, Dickinson jump-started her flagging career as the star of the TV adventure series “Police Woman”, which lasted four seasons. After years of avoiding nude scenes, Dickinson again went nude in Brian De Palma's “Dressed to Kill” (1980), although most of the skin shots were performed by a body double. |