It's 1975, and 44 year-old actress Angie Dickinson is enjoying an improbable hot streak. Portraying Los Angeles Police detective Sergeant Suzanne "Pepper" Anderson, the fortysomething actress won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress - Drama Series". Her hit series ranked 15th in the Nielsen ratings during the 1974-1975 television season. Although finishing behind the All in the Family, Sanford and Son, M*A*S*H, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Rockford Files, Dickinson's series surpassed S.W.A.T., The Bob Newhart Show, Mannix and The Streets of San Francisco.
Married to prolific composer Burt Bacharach ("I Say A Little Prayer", "The Look of Love", "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"), Dickinson and Bacharach conveyed mellow, So-Cal cool. Angie donning a soft pantsuit bringing a turtlenecked Burt, playing the piano, a glass of Martini and Rossi on the rocks. Say "yes".
Kodachrome captured Dickinson's transformation from a 1950s ingenue to sassy 1960s blonde to 1970s middle-aged feminist. One could make a convincing argument that Dickinson could not only held her ground against the 1970s jiggle actresses (Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Somers, Lynda Carter), but stood apart by conveying the wisdom and sexuality of a fortysomething woman would could whip some twentysomething ass. Dig Dickinson's little flip of her hair during the opening credits in Police Woman. Is that cool, or what?
Born Angeline Brown, the actress grew up in Southern California. As a teenager, young Angie won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights essay contest. Dickson attended Glendale Community College, and transferred to Immaculate Heart College where she earned a business degree. Dickson left the corporate world to pursue an acting career. In the 1950s, Dickinson became a mainstay of television dramas (Death Valley Days, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, General Electric Theater) and variety shows (The Colgate Comedy Hour).
Dickinson's break-out role occurred in Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959). She played gambler "Feathers" with an eye for John Wayne. The cast included Western staple Walter Brennan, team idol Ricky Nelson and Rat Pack founding member Dean Martin. One year later, Dickinson played the wife of Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) in the Rat Pack classic Ocean's 11. In the movie's cast credits, only Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford received higher billing.
While the testosterone-driven Rat Pack was male-only, Dickson comprised the female auxiliary that included Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Shirley MacLaine and Marilyn Monroe. Dickinson has been romantically linked with Sinatra ("the most important man in my life"), star of the hit-TV drama The Fugitive David Janssen ("a great date and a great love") and President John F. Kennedy (no comment).
In 1965, Dickinson - later characterized in the Atlanta Monthly magazine as "a thinking man's trophy blonde" - married prolific composer Bacharach. One year later, a pregnant Dickinson gave a difficult birth to the couple's daughter Nikki, who was three months premature at birth. Dickinson rejected movie and television roles to care for her daughter, who experienced disabling vision problems and was later diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. (A tragic footnote to the story: Dickinson's only child committed suicide in 2007.)
Portraying Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) police detective Lisa Beaumont, Dickinson appeared in "The Gamble" in the Joseph Wambaugh's critically acclaimed anthology Police Story in 1974. The episode proved so popular that Police Woman spun off with Dickinson and Earl Holliman (who replaced Tattletales game-show host Bert Convy as the supervisor of the detective unit). Police Woman premiered on September 13, 1974, and became a runaway fan favorite. Assigned to the LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Unit, Dickinson's character went undercover - as a prostitute, exotic dancer, teacher, nurse, prisoner - during her assignments with the LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Unit. Police Woman became the first successful one-hour drama with a female lead.
NBC cancelled Police Woman in 1978. Bacharach and Dickinson separated the same year. She alleged that her husband cheated during their 13-year marriage. Bacharach married composer Carole Bayer Sager in 1982; together they penned "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)", "The Minute I Saw You" from Three Men and a Baby and "That's What Friends Are For." Bacharach and Sager divorced in 1991.
In 1999, Playboy magazine ranked Dickinson as #42 in its list of the "100 Sexiest Stars of the Decade." interestingly, Playboy inexplicably rated the actress formerly known as Police Woman behind Heather Locklear (#36), Stella Stevens (#27), Jenny McCarthy (#15) and Pamela Anderson (#8). Not surprisingly, #1 was fellow Rat Pack auxiliary member Marilyn Monroe.
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