"Say yes" to Angie Dickinson, aka Police Woman

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.

Saluting the first - and thus far only - Cool President

Today marks a dubious and solemn occasion: Forty-seven years ago, a Dallas deranged gunman -- some contend that there was more than one -- assassinated the country's first Cool President, John F. Kennedy.

Thomas Jefferson was an 18th-century Renascence American, Abraham Lincoln was legendary, and Theodore Roosevelt was rugged. Elected to White House in 1960, Kennedy offered a stark and welcome contrast to the older men who occupied the oval office. As Kennedy only served 1,000 days in the White House, historians and political scientists can only speculate as to the long-lasting impact of the New Frontier programs. How influential was Kennedy in the enactment of the Civil Rights bill, Medicare, food-stamp programs?

One issue is indisputable: Kennedy blazed the trail for Presidential Cool. Sure, he sports the conventional curriculum vitae for cool. A World War II Navy officer who skippered patrol torpedo (PT) boats near New Georgia and the Solomon islands, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, Purple Heart Medal, American Defense Service Medal and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars. The World War II veteran -- no doubt with the assistance of his father's financial and political clout -- was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948 at age 31. Massachusetts voters elected Kenned to the U.S. Senate in 1952. Dubbed by the media as "Washington's Gay Young Bachelor", Kennedy married drop-dead gorgeous debutante Jacqueline Bouvier one year later.

When younger sister Patricia married British actor Peter Lawford, Kennedy gained access to the Rat Pack, the hippest gang in 1960s Hollywood: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Lawford. The Rat Pack actively campaigned for Kennedy, whom Sinatra dubbed "chicky baby", during the 1960 election. Sinatra sang a campaign song to the tune of "High Hopes". Although Kennedy outpolled (303) Richard Nixon (219) the vote in the Electoral College 303, the popular vote was much closer: The elecorate preferred Kennedy (34,200,984 votes, 49.72%) to Nixon (34,108, 157, 49.55 percent) by a much closer margin. Less than 100,000 votes spelled the difference between the New Frontier and Tricky Dick.

One can discuss politics, which is a topic for the New Republic of the Atlantic Monthly. This post is about cool, and JFK had style, baby. No America's Cup captain looked as commanding while skippering a boat as did the commander and chief. Don Draper finishes a pale second to JFK in sporting early 1960s style and chiuc. No American man -- then or now -- looked as fashionable donning a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.

When Kennedy was elected in 1960, an aide observed, "This administration is going to do for sex what the last one did for golf." This prophecy may have proven the understatement of the decade.

Kennedy enjoyed the luxury of a presidency that predated smartphone cameras, YouTube, blogging, talk radio, instant messaging... and, most importantly, a White House press corps that adhered to a code of silence by declining to investigate and report longstanding rumors of presidential indiscretion. Kennedy's dalliances included trysts with with Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Angie Dickinson, Judith Campbell and Mary Pinchot Meyer.

As Bill Clinton demonstrated two-and-a-half decades later, conducting an Oval Office extramarital affair does not personify sex appeal or cool. Wearing sunglasses while playing the saxophone does not make you a hip cat: Zoot, the Muppet Show saxophonist, will dissuade one of this image. Barrack Obama is discovering -- contrary to what Huey Lewis and News once professed -- it's not "hip to be square."

A cynic might conclude that Presidential Cool perished with Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The optimist suspects -- and hopes -- that Presidential Cool takes more than a couple years to cultivate.

Golden Boy's death spelled the beginning of the end of So-Cal cool and Rat Pack hip

Maybe the recent Veterans Day holiday started the confluent of thoughts. The television in the other room blared the audio from the Travel Channel program Ghost Adventures as the Danger Boys investigated the reputedly haunted La Palazza mansion in Las Vegas, NV. Amongst the swirl ideas emerged what seemed an unlikely theme... the life and death of singer and actor Dean Paul Martin.

The son of the Rat Pack's undisputed "King of Cool," Dean Paul "Dino" Martin Jr. was born on November 17, 1951 in Santa Monica, CA. With Desi Arnaz Jr. on drums and Billy Hinsche on Rickenbacker guitar and 13 year-old Dino playing the Hofner bass, the teen-idol group was cannily dubbed "Dino Desi and Billy." Recording for the Reprise record label -- owned by family friend Frank Sinatra -- the trio twice landed on the Billboard pop lists in 1965 with "I'm A Fool" (#17) and "Not The Lovin' Kind" (#25). Dino Desi and Billy made a bevy of television appearances, including the Ed Sullivan Show, Shindig!, Hullabaloo, Mike Douglas Show, Joey Bishop Show, Hollywood Palace, American Bandstand and Dean Martin Show. Although panned by the critics, the trio served as opening acts for the Beach Boys, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Lovin' Spoonful and Mamas and the Papas.

Is anybody surprised that Dino starred in the "Thru Spray Coloured Glasses" video? Dig the Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, the Sony transistor radio hanging from the rear-view mirror of the Karmann Ghia. Twisting near the beach with rock music blasting in the background... is that Great Society-era, teenage-era California Dreamin'?

The group broke up in 1970. While Desi Arnaz Jr. kissed Marcia Brady's cheek on The Brady Bunch, Dino polished his tennis game and competed in a juniors' competition in Wimbledon. Dino married actress Olivia Hussey (Romeo and Juliet) in 1971; the marriage lasted seven years. Dino pursued an acting career, and portrayed a professional player and the object of a cougar's affections in the 1979 movie Players with Ali McGraw. The role earned Dino a Golden Globe nomination as "Best New Star of the Year - Male."

Dino and Olympic figure skating gold medalist Dorothy Hamill married in 1982. They were divorced two years later, and remained friends until Dino's untimely death. It's hard to imagine anybody -- even an ex-wife -- staying long at Dino for long.

Note that Dino donned military dress blues during the wedding ceremony. Having earned his pilot's license at age 16, Dino was commissioned as an officer in the California Air National Guard in 1981, and earned his aviator wings. Dino's life was unexpectedly cut short on March 25, 1987 during a Guard exercise. The Phantom II F-4 fighter jet that Dino was flying during a snowstorm in California's San Bernardino Mountains. Only 35 years old when he passed, Dino is interned in the United States National Cemetery in Los Angeles.

The death of the popular actor and aviator son devastated Dean Martin. The elder Martin scaled back his performance schedule -- large-venue concerts with Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. -- and retired four years later. Retreating into a life of solitude, the elder Martin passed away on Christmas Day 1995.

What made Dean Paul Martin Jr. über cool? Dino possessed the suave, self assurance of his famous father with the Southern California, golden-boy looks that catapulted him above the other teen idols of his era. Unlike some self-absorbed, self-destructive young stars who perished from drug overdoses, Dino died serving his country. Mind you, this post isn't a red-state rant against blue-state celebrities. This blog is undeniably and unabashedly Blue State. Don't like it... go away and read your Drudge Report. Rather, this post distinguishes between those who took and those who gave back.

Here's to Dino on what would have been his 59th birthday.