Dorothy Provine

Blonde, bouncy Dorothy Provine was born in South Dakota to a Seattle-based businessman and his interior decorator wife. While attending the University of Washington, Provine appeared in some 35 amateur and professional stage productions, and was cohost of a Seattle TV quiz program. She headed to Broadway at age 20, but had better luck in Hollywood, where she was given star billing in such low-budgeters as The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) and The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959), the latter film representing Lou Costello's last screen work. Signed to a Warner Bros. contract in 1959, Provine starred on two hour-long TV series, The Alaskans and The Roaring 20s. Both programs gave the actress ample opportunity to display her considerable singing and dancing skills, as did her extended cameo in the 1965 Blake Edwards superproduction The Great Race. She also proved an apt comedienne in such films as It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), Good Neighbor Sam (1964), and Who's Minding the Mint? (1967); she was less effective as a British secret agent in Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1966). Dorothy Provine retired from the screen in 1968 upon marrying cinematographer Robert Day, though she continued to show up in commercials and "straw hat" summer theater productions. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide