Dorothy Provine Biography
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- Born Jan. 20, 1935
Dorothy Michelle Provine (January 20, 1935 – April 25, 2010) was an American singer, dancer and actress. Born in 1935 in Deadwood, South Dakota, she grew up in Seattle, Washington, and was hired in 1958 by Warner Bros., after which she first starred in The Bonnie Parker Story and played many roles in TV series. During the 1960s, Provine starred in series such as The Alaskans and The Roaring Twenties, and her major roles in movies included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Good Neighbor Sam (1964) with Jack Lemmon, That Darn Cat! (1965), Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1966), Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), and Never a Dull Moment (1968) with Dick Van Dyke and Edward G. Robinson. In 1968, Provine married the film and television director Robert Day and mostly retired. She died of emphysema on April 25, 2010 in Bremerton, Washington.
Provine was born in Deadwood in southwestern South Dakota, to William and Irene Provine, but grew up in Seattle, Washington, where her parents ran a nightclub. She attended the University of Washington in Seattle, from which she graduated with a degree in Theater Arts in 1957. While there, she joined the women's fraternity Alpha Gamma Delta. In Washington, she handed out prizes for a quiz program on a local television station until she was hired by Warner Bros. at $500 per week. In Hollywood, she starred in the titular role as the cigar-chomping, machine-gun firing heroine of the 1958 film The Bonnie Parker Story directed by William Witney. That same year, she performed in a credited walk-on part in the NBC Western television series Wagon Train, in the episode "The Marie Dupree Story." In 1959, she was in the cast of The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock, which was Lou Costello's last screen appearance. In that same year she again appeared in Wagon Train in the episode "Matthew Lowry Story", this time having a part that ran the full episode.
On January 3, 1959, Provine appeared as Laura Winfield in the episode "The Bitter Lesson" of the NBC Western series Cimarron City. Laura Winfield is a newly arrived schoolteacher with false credentials who is plotting with a male companion to rob a stage shipment of gold, but not before Deputy Sheriff Lane Temple (series star John Smith) falls in love with her. Dan Blocker and Gregg Palmer also appear in this episode as interested suitors of the new teacher. A few weeks thereafter, she was cast in a supporting role in the episode "The Giant Killer" of the ABC/Warner Bros. Western series Sugarfoot, with Will Hutchins in the title role.
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