Spanish postcard by Edic. Raker, Barcelona, no. 247/6017.
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 832, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Browning Studio H.P.S.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 617. Photo: Warner.
A seductive book clerk
Dorothy Eloise Maloney was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925. She was one of five children born to an accountant father. Two older sisters died of polio. A younger brother later was killed by lightning while on a Dallas golf course. When she was a child, her family moved to Dallas, Texas. Attending Ursuline Convent and Highland Park High School, Dorothy was the 'School Favorite' and won several awards for swimming and horseback riding.
She modelled for Neiman Marcus. Following graduation, she studied at Southern Methodist University with the intent of becoming a nurse, but a role in the college play 'Starbound' happened to catch the eye of an RKO talent scout and she was offered a Hollywood contract.
At age 18, Dorothy Maloney made her film debut in Gildersleeve on Broadway (Gordon Douglas, 1943). The lovely brunette continued as an RKO starlet in the Frank Sinatra musicals Higher and Higher (Tim Whelan, 1943) and Step Lively (Tim Whelan, 1944), and a couple of the Falcon mysteries.
She had a showier role in Show Business (Edwin L. Marin, 1944) with Eddie Cantor. RKO lost interest, however, after the two-year contract was up. Warner Bros. offered the actress a contract. As Dorothy Malone, she played a seductive book clerk in the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall classic The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946).
Critics and audiences took notice and she got more visible roles in Two Guys from Texas (David Butler, 1948), South of St. Louis (Ray Enright, 1949) and Colorado Territory (Raoul Walsh, 1949). Despite this positive movement, Warner Bros. did not extend Dorothy's contract in 1949 and she returned to her family in Dallas and a steadier job with an insurance agency.
Small Dutch collector card.
Dutch postcard, no. 3378. Photo: Columbia / Foto-archief Film en Toneel.
Dutch postcard, no. 174. Photo: Warner Bros.
She needed to gamble on her career
Dorothy Malone decided to recommit to her acting career and move to New York to study at the American Theater Wing. In between her studies, she worked for TV and appeared in B movies like Saddle Legion (Lesley Selander, 1951) and The Bushwhackers (Rod Amateau, 1951). Producer Hal Wallis called her back to Hollywood to appear in Scared Stiff (George Marshall, 1953) starring the comedy duo of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. She also appeared with the duo in the musical-comedy Artists and Models (Frank Tashlin, 1955) as the love interest of Martin's character.
After 11 years of mostly roles as loving sweethearts and wives, the brunette actress decided she needed to gamble on her career instead of playing it safe. She fired her agent, hired a publicist, dyed her hair blonde and sought a new image. First off was as a sister to Doris Day in Young at Heart (Gordon Douglas, 1954), a musical remake of Four Daughters (Michael Curtiz, 1938). The platinum blonde seemed to emphasize her overt and sensual beauty and she garnered even better attention when she appeared in the war pic Battle Cry (Raoul Walsh, 1955), in which she shared love scenes with heartthrob Tab Hunter.
She continued the momentum with the Westerns Five Guns West ( Roger Corman, 1955) and Tall Man Riding (Lesley Selander, 1955) starring Randolph Scott, but not with melodramatic romantic dud Sincerely Yours (Gordon Douglas, 1955) which tried to sell to the audiences a heterosexual Liberace. She signed with Universal and won the scenery-chewing role of Marylee Hadley in the soap opera Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956) in which she played an alcoholic nymphomaniac who tries to steal Rock Hudson from his wife, Lauren Bacall. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "She won a supporting Oscar for her splendidly tramp, boozed-up Southern belle which was highlighted by her writhing mambo dance."
The Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk, 1957), which reunited Malone with Hudson faltered, and Quantez (Harry Keller, 1957) with Fred MacMurray was just another run-of-the-mill western. In Man of a Thousand Faces (Joseph Pevney, 1957) she played the unsympathetic first wife of James Cagney's Lon Chaney Sr, Then she appeared as alcoholic actress Diana Barrymore in the biographic melodrama Too Much, Too Soon (Art Napoleon, 1958) opposite Errol Flynn.
At age 35, she married playboy actor Jacques Bergerac, Ginger Rogers' ex-husband, in 1959. A baby daughter, Mimi, was born the following year. Fewer film offers, which included Warlock (Edward Dmytryk, 1959) starring Richard Widmark, and The Last Voyage (Andrew L. Stone, 1960) with Robert Stack, came her way as Dorothy focused more on family life. A second daughter, Diane, was born in 1962.
West German postcard in the Mimosa series by B.I.S.-Verlag, Stuttgart, no. 1146. Photo: Universal / Union-Film.
Yugoslavian postcard by ZK, no. 2913. Sent by mail in 1962.
Yugoslavian postcard by ZK, no. 3904. Publicity still for Man of a Thousand Faces (Joseph Pevney, 1957).
TV's first prime-time soap opera
Dorothy Malone's turbulent marriage ended in 1964 in a divorce and a bitter custody battle with Dorothy eventually winning primary custody. It took the small screen to rejuvenate her career in the mid-1960s when she earned top billing for TV's first prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1964). Dorothy starred as long-suffering Constance MacKenzie, the bookshop operator who harboured a dark secret about the birth of her daughter Allison, played by the 19-year-old Mia Farrow.
The series was a smash hit. The run wasn't entirely happy, however. Doctors discovered blood clots in her lungs which required major surgery and she almost died. Lola Albright filled in until she was able to return. Just as bad, the significance of her role dwindled with time and 20th Century Fox finally wrote her and co-star Tim O'Connor off the show in 1968. Dorothy filed a breach of contract lawsuit which ended in an out-of-court settlement.
She would later return to the role in the TV movies Murder in Peyton Place (Bruce Kessler, 1977) and Peyton Place: The Next Generation (Larry Elikann, 1985). Her life on- and off-camera did not improve. Dorothy's second marriage to stockbroker Robert Tomarkin in 1969 would last only three months, and a third to businessman Charles Huston Bell managed about three years.
Now-matronly roles in the films Winter Kills (William Richert, 1979), Off Your Rocker (Morley Markson, Larry Pall, 1982), The Being (Jackie Kong, 1983) and the Spanish-British horror film Descanse en piezas/Rest in Pieces (José Ramón Larraz, 1987), were few and far between a few TV-movies, did nothing to advance her.
Malone returned and settled for good back in Dallas, returning to Hollywood only on occasion. Her last film was the popular thriller Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992) as a friend to Sharon Stone, a mother convicted of murdering her family. Dorothy Malone died in a nursing facility in Dallas at the age of 92. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "She will be remembered as one of those Hollywood stars who proved she had the talent but somehow got the short end of the stick when it came to quality films offered."
Vintage collector card.
Swiss-German-British postcard by News Productions, Baulmes / Filmwelt Berlin, Bakede / News Productions, Stroud, no. 56498. Photo: Collection Cinémathèque Suisse, Lausanne. Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956), produced by Universal.
Big programme card by Cineteca Bologna for Il Cinema Ritrovato, XXXVI edizione, Selezione Cinema Ritrovato Young, 25 June 2022. Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack in Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956).
Vintage collectors card, no. 29. Dorothy Malone in the TV series Peyton Place (1964-1969).
Source: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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