Actress Dorothy Provine Dies at 75
Starred in many feature films and television series from the late 1950s through late 1970s.
Dorothy Provine, an actress who rose to fame in the 1960s through the film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and the television series The Roaring ’20s, died April 25, 2010, in Bremerton, Washington. She was 75 and lived on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
According to news reports, the cause was emphysema.
A native of Deadwood, South Dakota, Provine was a student at the University of Washington when she found part-time work handing out prizes on a local television quiz show. In 1957 she left school and moved to Hollywood, where she was cast as the notorious bank robber Bonnie Parker in the low-budget feature The Bonnie Parker Story.
She went on to appear in more than 40 film and television productions, including the ensemble comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, directed by Stanly Kramer and featuring Spencer Tray, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Buddy Hackett, Edie Adams, Dick Shawn, the Three Stooges and many others. She co-starred in The Great Race, That Darn Cat and Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die.
In 1960 and ’61, Provine starred as Pinky Pinkham, the Charleston-dancing flapper in the ABC drama The Roaring ’20s, where much of the action centered on the speakeasy where Pinky performed.
Other series in which she appeared include Mike Hammer, The Real McCoys, Wagon Train, Dr. Kildare, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Love, American Style and Police Woman.
She is survived by her husband since 1968, director Robert Day, as well as a son and two sisters.