Malone, Dorothy (1925—)

American actress who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Written on the Wind . Born Dorothy Eloise Maloney on January 30, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois; attended Southern Methodist University; married actor Jacques Bergerac (divorced); two subsequent marriages.

Filmography:

Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943); The Falcon and the Co-Eds (1943); Higher and Higher

(1943); Show Business (1944); Seven Days Ashore (1944); Youth Runs Wild (1944); One Mysterious Night (1944); Too Young to Know (1945); Janie Gets Married (1946); The Big Sleep (1946); Night and Day (1946); To the Victor (1948); Two Guys from Texas (1948); One Sunday Afternoon (1948); Flaxy Martin (1949); South of St. Louis (1949); Colorado Territory (1949); The Nevadan (1950); Convicted (1950); Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950); The Killer That Stalked New York (1950); Saddle Legion (1951); The Bushwackers (1951); Torpedo Alley (1953); Scared Stiff (1953); Law and Order (1953); Jack Slade (1953); Loophole (1954); The Lone Gun (1954); Pushover (1954); Young at Heart (1954); Security Risk (1954); The Fast and the Furious (1954); Private Hell 36 (1954); Five Guns West (1955); Battle Cry (1955); Tall Man Riding (1955); Sincerely Yours (1955); Artists and Models (1955); At Gunpoint (1955); Pillars of the Sky (1956); Tension at Table Rock (1956); Written on the Wind (1956); Quantez (1957); Man of a Thousand Faces (1957); Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957); The Tarnished Angels (1958); Too Much Too Soon (1958); Warlock (1959); The Last Voyage (1960); The Last Sunset (1961); Beach Party (1963); Fate Is the Hunter (1964); Femmine insaziabili (It./Monaco, 1969); The Man Who Would Not Die (Target in the Sun, 1975); The November Plan (1976); Golden Rendezvous (1977); Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979); Winter Kills (1979); The Day Time Ended (Sp., 1980); The Being (1983); Basic Instinct (1992).

The daughter of a telephone company auditor, actress Dorothy Malone was discovered by a talent agent while performing in a college play at Southern Methodist University. Signed by RKO, she played several small roles under her real name of Dorothy Maloney before moving to Warner Bros. in 1945 and changing her name to Dorothy Malone. Then a wholesome girl-next-door type, Malone played standard leading lady roles for the next decade, developing into a fine dramatic actress along the way. In 1956, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a frustrated nymphomaniac in Written on the Wind, a portrayal that changed her screen image considerably. Following the award, however, she suffered a dry spell. "Instead of getting better, my parts just got worse," she said of her later career. Malone had a long run (1964–69) on the hit television series "Peyton Place," based on the novel by Grace Metalious , and a small but meaty role in Basic Instinct (1992). The actress has been married three times; her first husband was the actor Jacques Bergerac.