Background
Dickinson, Angie was born on September 30, 1931 in Kulm, North Dakota, United States.
Dickinson, Angie was born on September 30, 1931 in Kulm, North Dakota, United States.
Studied at Immaculate Heart College and Glendale College.
She began in very small parts: Lucky Me (55, Jack Donohue); Man With the Gun (55, Richard Wilson); Tennessee’s Partner (55, Allan Dwan); Gun the Man Down (56, Andrew McLaglen); and Tension at Table Rock (56, Charles Marquis Warren). But she came to life in Samuel Fuller’s China Gate (57) as the half-caste girl, and as Steiger’s girlfriend in Cry Terror (58, Andrew L. Stone). That led to Rio Bravo, which in turn was the prelude to a career in which she has often seemed much more assured than her films. But, given reason and good company, she is totally compelling: The Bramble Bush (60, Daniel Petrie); Ocean’s 11 (60, Lewis Milestone); A Fever in the Blood (61, Vincent Sherman); Rachel Cade (61, Gordon Douglas); Lovers Must Learn (62, Delmer Daves); Jessica (62, Jean Negulesco); Captain Newman, M.D. (63, David Miller); treacherous, but still endearing, in The Killers (64, Don Siegel); The Art of Love (65, Norman Jewison); as Brando's wife in The Chase (66, Arthur Penn); Cast a Giant Shadow (66, Melville Shavel- son); The Pistolero of Red River (67, Richard Thorpe); rising to her dangerous decoy mission in Point Blank (67, John Boorman); Sam Whiskey (69, Arnold Laven); Young Billy Young (69, Burt Kennedy); Pretty Maids All in a Row (71, Roger Vadim); Un Homme est Mort (72, Jacques Deray); and Big Bad Mama (74, Steve Carver).
She has also done a lot of television: in the Grace Kellv part in Dial M for Murder (81, Boris Sagal); One Shoe Makes It Murder (82, William Hale); Jealousy (83, Jeffrey Bloom): A Touch of Scandal (84, Ivan Nag)'); Stilhcatch (87, Rod Hoi- comb); Police Story: The Freeway Killings (87, William A. Graham); Once Upon a Texas Train (88, Kennedy); Prime Target (89, Robert Collins); Fire and Rain (89, Jerry Jameson); in Wild Palms (93, Phil Joannu and Kathryn Bigelow); and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (94, Gus Van Sant).
In recent years, she has been seen in Sabrina (95, Sydney Pollack); The Maddening (96, Danny Huston); Remembrance (96, Bethany Rooney); The Sun, the Moon and the Stars (96, Geraldine Creed); The Don's Analyst (97, David Jablin); Deep Family Search (97, Arthur Allan Seidelman); Sealed with a Kiss (99, Ron Lagomarsino); The Last Producer (00, Burt Refolds): Duets (00, Bruce Paltrow); Pay It Forward (00, Mimi Leder); Big Bad Love (01. Arliss Howard).
Her career never gathered proper momentum; and nor has she seemed too distressed by having to make dull movies. Her virtues are probably not those of a leading actress, and it is significant that in her best film, Rio Bravo (59), she appeared very happy with Hawks’s masculine code and ensemble plaving. But equally, her Feathers in that film could be defended as a portrait of an intelligent, nervous, attractive woman that perfectly embodies the director’s philosophy. For till that the role seems restricted to genre, Feathers is one of the truest female characters in modem cinema. And it characterized Angie’s ability to inhabit a man’s world without asking for concessions and without needing to rock the conventions.
Married Gene Dickinson, 1952 (divorced 1960). Married Burt Bacharach, 1965 (divorced 1980). 1 child, Lea Nikki (deceased).