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Angie Dickinson Interview
"Growing older doesn't bother me," she said sitting on the couch in her living room. "Would you prefer to see me play opposite Robert Redford or Michele Pfeiffer? As a moviegoer, I wouldn't want to see me in that kind of part. I don't resent this type of casting at all. I understand it. What I'd like to do is play Sharon Stone's or Al Pacino's mother. That's what I'd like -- really hot and hip mothers, or even grandmothers. I just don't want to play boring or stereotypical mother roles." For women more then men in Hollywood, the passage of years can exact a cruel toll, often resulting in fewer and less desirable casting callbacks. Dickinson, however, says she has no desire to turn back the clock. "What's the point?" she asked. "You can't stop the aging process. There's only so much oil you can put on your body. I've always just tried to go with my age. If the part requires somebody a little younger or older, I can probably get away with that." A native of Kulm, North Dakota, Angeline Brown (she took the name Dickinson from her first husband), and her family moved when she was a child to Glendale, Calif., near Los Angeles. While working as a secretary for an aerospace company, some friends urged her to enter a local television beauty pageant. She took first prize, which included a chorus line spot in The Colgate Comedy Hour , starring Jimmy Durante. Although bitten by the acting bug, Dickinson, in keeping with her Midwestern sensibilities, kept her secretarial job while pursuing work in film and television. Her first film role in the 1954 Doris Day-Bob Cummings trifle, Lucky Me , consisted of the single line, "Happy birthday, Uncle Otis." A number of other "walk-on" parts followed before she slowly began to edge her way into meatier roles, such as the gun moll in Cry Terror (1958) starring Rod Steiger and James Mason. "In that film I came to the realization that I could work and succeed in this business," she said. "I didn't care about being the 'star.' I just wanted to make a living and have a consistent career." That hope would have easily been dashed if it wasn't for legendary director-producer Howard Hawks; a man with a roving eye and a propensity for discovering "fresh and young talent." More than a decade earlier, he had cast a young Lauren Bacall to play opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have And Have Not . This time, he was to work his Svengali-like magic on Dickinson. After seeing her in an episode of Perry Mason , he signed her to a seven-year contract and cast her as "Feathers," opposite John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in the 1959 western classic, Rio Bravo. Dickinson's "coolness" in the part has often been compared to Bacall's enigmatic and unflappable performance in To Have and Have Not. Dickinson didn't remain part of Hawks' stable of stars for long, however. He soon sold her contract to Warner Brothers. "Howard had a track record of launching careers -- particularly those of women -- and then casting them off. I can't explain it. All I know is that I never worked for him again." After some forgettable roles in mostly "B" pictures, she managed to jettison her contract with Warner's in favor of a similar pact with Universal Studios. The carrot was an opportunity to co-star with Gregory Peck in the army hospital drama Dr. Newman, M.D. She next starred as the deceitful "Sheila Farr" in the 1964 remake of The Killers, co-starring John Cassavetes, and in his last screen role (and his first as a heavy), the future President, Ronald Reagan. "He (Reagan) was so bad at playing a heavy," said Dickinson. "That's why it's such a cult film today. He was so nice personally, and that's why he was so bad at playing an evil man. Audiences just couldn't accept it. Every time we'd meet at social (gatherings) after that, he would joke how pleased he was that he really didn't have to hit me; although in the film, his character gives me a good slap. Reagan was fulfilling his final contract commitment, so he was more preoccupied with launching a political career. No one at the time would have guessed where it would take him." Dickinson spent the next several years toiling in desultory film and television projects. She had no idea that her 1973 guest starring role as Sergeant "Pepper Anderson" in an episode of Police Story would catapult her to international stardom that, until that time, had eluded her. The spinoff, Police Woman on NBC was a Friday night ratings winner for four seasons and garnered Dickinson three Emmy nominations as the glamorous, but tough undercover cop. In addition to being the first major series to showcase a woman "outside of the kitchen," Police Woman also spawned a new generation of tough lady crime fighting shows, including Charlie's Angels . "Without Police Woman I wouldn't have had a career," said Dickinson, without any hesitation. "The show started about the same time the women's movement was taking off. Ours was the first prime-time one-hour show featuring a strong, professional woman. It paved the way for other series to follow." Not interested in another series commitment, Dickinson went on to star in a host of television and film roles, most notably the 1980 Brian De Palma thriller Dressed to Kill . Away from the camera, Dickinson is the mother of a grown daughter, Nikki, from her marriage to former husband, songwriter Burt Bacharach. She has also gone quite public with a deeply private matter -- her older sister's 14-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. "It's the worst disease anyone could get," she said. "I do what I can by traveling to fundraisers and sharing my story. The research results have been encouraging." Of today's stars, Dickinson says she sees a lot of her younger self in people like Sharon Stone and Robin Wright. However, unlike the romantic interludes played out in Dickinson's movies, today's films leave "little to the imagination." "I think it was sexier when you didn't have to take it all off," she says. "In Rio Bravo when Duke makes love to Feathers, the scene dissolves to the next morning where we see him putting on his vest and almost humming. It was subtle, but you knew what happened. Give me a towel and some blankets any day!" |
