Angie Dickinson turns 95 on Wednesday, September 30. She was born Angeline Brown that day in 1931 in Kulm, North Dakota, according to Wikipedia, and her breakthrough came in 1959 opposite John Wayne in Howard Hawks’s Rio Bravo, which won her the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. “It was heaven,” she told Yahoo Entertainment in a rare 2023 interview. “He was so respectful of my freshness.” She hated the hat she wore in her first scene, she added, “but I didn’t win.” A year later she was holding her own with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the original Ocean’s 11.
Sinatra was more than a co-star. “We just liked each other. I was crazy about him,” she said in the same interview. “He was absolutely the love of my life. Though I would not have wanted to be married to him.” She did marry twice, first to Gene Dickinson from 1952 to 1960 and then to composer Burt Bacharach from 1965 to 1981. Their daughter, Nikki, was autistic and died by suicide, according to Wikipedia, a loss Dickinson has spoken about with great tenderness. From 1974 to 1978 she was Sergeant “Pepper” Anderson on Police Woman, which brought her a Golden Globe and three Emmy nominations, though she has said the series cost her in Hollywood. “It hurt my movie career,” she told Yahoo. “You can be a star on TV and they don’t give a s—.”
Why Angie Dickinson stepped away from acting
Although Police Woman made Dickinson a television icon, she later admitted that she regretted accepting the role. The series helped inspire women to pursue careers in law enforcement, but its demanding production schedule left her little time for movies. During a 2019 interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Dickinson reflected on the opportunities she believed she had missed while playing Sergeant Pepper Anderson. The irony was not lost on her: a role that helped open doors for women on television had also made it harder for her to maintain the film career she loved.
Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill in 1980 gave her a Saturn Award and a famously shocking opening act. Her last credit was the 2009 Hallmark film Mending Fences, and her last public appearance was introducing a restored Rio Bravo at the TCM Classic Film Festival in April 2023, according to Yahoo. She keeps to herself now, a vegetarian who admits to the occasional plate of country-fried chicken. Ninety-five years on, the girl from Kulm is still the one the cowboys in Rio Bravo could not stop looking at.
Angie Dickinson Reunited With ‘Rio Bravo’ More Than 60 Years Later
In April 2023, Dickinson returned to Hollywood for a special screening of Rio Bravo at the TCM Classic Film Festival. The event celebrated the premiere of a newly restored 4K version of the 1959 Western, with Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson also attending to honor classic film preservation. Dickinson, then 91, joined TCM host Ben Mankiewicz onstage to share memories of working with John Wayne, Dean Martin, and director Howard Hawks. She was the last surviving major star of the film, making her appearance particularly meaningful for fans.
Is Angie Dickinson still alive?
Updated October 15, 2026: Yes. Angie Dickinson is alive and turned 95 on September 30, 2026. Closer Weekly marked the milestone on her birthday. She hasn’t made a movie since the 2009 Hallmark film Mending Fences, and she has kept to herself since her last big public outing at the TCM Classic Film Festival in 2023.
She sounded like a woman who loves life the last time she spoke at length on TV. In a 2019 CBS Sunday Morning interview with Mo Rocca, she looked out over Beverly Hills and was asked what she thinks about. Her answer: “That I hope that I never die!” Then she added, “Some day, I won’t have this. But I won’t know it!”
What did Angie say about her daughter, Nikki?
Lea Nikki Bacharach was born in 1966 and was the only child of Angie and composer Burt Bacharach. She had a form of autism, and she died by suicide in January 2007 at age 40, according to the Associated Press.
Angie rarely talks about that loss. When she did with CBS, she remembered the joy before the grief. “She was very smart and funny and wonderful,” she said. “All my memories of her are my best memories.” She called Nikki “a wonderful, wonderful gift.”
Why didn’t her marriage to Burt Bacharach last?
Angie married Bacharach in 1965. They separated in 1976 and divorced in 1981. Asked to sum up their marriage, she told CBS, “Well, that’s very hard to summarize. He was so different.” She was also blunt about it. “He should never have been married,” she said. “He never loved me, I can tell you that right now, the way one loves.”
Did she love him? “Yeah, I liked him a lot,” she said, as Fox News reported. Bacharach, who wrote hits like “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” died in February 2023 at 94.
Looking back, Dickinson admitted that she had been intimidated when filming began. Wayne, Hawks, and the crew welcomed her with a dinner, but the gathering only made her realize how inexperienced she was compared with her famous colleagues. Wayne’s patience helped her find her confidence. He would quietly wait while she worked through difficult scenes, never making her feel rushed. More than six decades later, Dickinson still remembered his kindness, calling him one of her favorite co-stars. It was a fitting return to the movie that had transformed a young actress from North Dakota into a Hollywood star.
