Dorothy Malone (born January 30, 1925) is an American actress.
She was born as Dorothy Eloise Maloney. Much of her early career was spent in supporting roles in Grade-B Westerns, although on occasion she had the opportunity to play small but memorable roles, such as that of the young, brainy, lusty, bespectacled bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep, with Humphrey Bogart, in 1946.
In 1956, Malone dyed her hair blonde to co-star with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Robert Stack in director Douglas Sirk's melodrama, Written on the Wind. Her portrayal of the dipso-nymphomaniac daughter of a Texas oil baron won her the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. As a result, she was offered meatier roles in better films, including Man of a Thousand Faces (with James Cagney), Tarnished Angels (again with Hudson and Stack, again directed by Sirk), and The Last Voyage (with Stack).
Malone became a household name when she accepted the lead role of Constance MacKenzie Carson on the ABC primetime serial Peyton Place, on which she starred from 1964 through 1968.
Her last notable screen appearance was as a mother convicted of murdering her family in Basic Instinct (1992), with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone.
Malone was married and divorced three times and has two daughters from her first marriage.
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Last updated: 08-06-2005 20:49:59
