Diana Douglas

The daughter of the Attorney General of Bermuda, Diana Dill came to New York in the late '30s to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She left a burgeoning stage career behind when signed to a Hollywood contract in 1942, but before long she was back in New York, thoroughly disillusioned with movies. In 1943 she married one of her fellow AADA student, aspiring actor Kirk Douglas. For the next several years, she divided her time between her stage career and raising her sons, and was also persuaded to make a handful of film appearances, notably as Elaine Monetti in House of Strangers (1949). Though divorced from Douglas by the early '50s, she remained on good terms with her ex-husband, even appearing in his first film directorial effort, The Indian Fighter. Extremely active in television, Diana Douglas was a regular on the 1974 series The Cowboys, and made dozens of guest appearances in such programs as Streets of San Francisco (1972-1978), which co-starred her actor/producer son Michael Douglas. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide