Dorothy Provine....Who!!

This is the first photo I received from Dorothy Provine after I
had written to her in 1961, when I first saw her in the new TV
show called "The Roaring 20's"

You may note that I am a bit of a movie buff. It was 1961 and one
of the 1st programmes on our television (TV was new to our
household and had only been on air in Brisbane since 1959) was
"The Roaring 20's". The show was set during Prohibition.
One of the stars was Dorothy Provine.
I was 17 and she was the prettiest woman I had ever seen.
I was smitten with her. She looked great and to me had a lovely
singing voice. Even then I wasa movie goer (my mother had
introduced me to movies when I was quite young). You could
show her a photo of a movie star (well known or not) and she
could tell you their name. This was something I also picked up
from her. I would buy any movie magazines that had stories
about Dorothy Provine, cut out the articles and paste into a book.
I still have the books and it is from these books where I have
scanned and then posted these pictures. If you search google
with Dorothy's name you will only find three photos.
The bio on her is very sparse.
I will attempt to add more information about DOROTHY PROVINE.


Michele Dorothy Provine was was born on 20th January 1937
in Deadwood,South Dakota and graduated from the University
of Washington with a degree in Theater Arts. Hollywood
folklore has it that Dorothy landed the role of the
notorious femme bank robber in the low budget "B" film
"The Bonnie Parker Story" (1958) just three days after
arriving in Hollywood. As you may recall this also made
many years later as "Bonnie and Clyde" with Warren Beatty
and Faye Dunaway. Her next role was in the lead role as
"The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959) opposite Lou Costello
in his last screen role. I saw this film and it was a silly
and unfunny role for Lou Costello (he of the Bud Abbott and
Lou Costello comedian team) to end his career with.

This was the first album that came out with songs from
the "The Roaring 20's". A volume 11 was released then
another called "Oh You Kid". I used to have them all,
but after 10,000 plays (maybe a little over stated)
they all became unplayable.

The Roaring Twenties featured a Prohibition
Era setting and concerned the adventures
of two newspaper reporters Pat Garrison
(Donald May) and Scott Norris (Rex Reason)
in searching out various kinds of corruption
that existed during that period. Pat and Scott
were aided by nightclub singer Pinky
Pinkham (Dorothy Provine). Dorothy played
the part of a flapper and was well received by
the critics for her singing and acting. It was
hoped that this show would be as successful
as "The Untouchables" but this was not to
be so as "The Roaring Twenties" never caught fire with the viewing
public and was canceled midway through the 1961-62 season after airing only 45 episodes.



"The Roaring Twenties" was actually aired on American TV in
October, 1960. Before that Dorothy co-starred in "The Alaskans"
which aired in October, 1959, but for some strange reason
"The Roaring 20"s" aired on Australian television before
"The Alaskans", so even though Dorothy was no longer on TV,
suddendly she re-appeared in "The Alaskans".
"The Alaskans" was set in the 1890s Alaska featuring Roger Moore
as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee," a pair of
adventurers dealing with the Yukon gold miners. Dorothy Provine
as Rocky Shaw played yet another saloon girl.
This show only lasted one series.






















During the course of the show I wrote to Dorothy twice
and the top photo is the autographed photo I received
and the letter and photo I received from my 2nd letter.








In 1961 after "The Roaring 20's" finished filming Dorothy was
invited by Mike and Gloria Romanoff (he of the famous Hollywood
Romanoff Restaurant) to come along on a tour of the Pacific.
Included in the group was Frank Sinatra. When they arrived in
Sydney the reporters assumed Dorothy and Frank were here on
a romantic interlude. It was rumoured that they were a "couple"
for a time but this soon became apparent was not the case when
Sinatra began dating Juliet Prowse.



After the TV series finished Dorothy didn't want to do anymore
TV shows as the days were too long and demanding. She wanted
to start doing movies. She guest appeared on shows like "Sugarfoot";
"Wagon Train"; "Colt 45": Dr. Kildare and "Hawaiian Eye".
Her next role was in a two part episode of "The Man From Uncle".
This two parter was edited into one show and was released in
Australia at the cinemas as "One Spy Too Many". This was so
successful that another two parter was put together and also
shown in cinemas as "The Spy In The Green Hat".




















After she had finished guest starring in various TV
shows Dorothy was offered a job doing a night club
act with George Burns. They named the act
"The Roaring Sixties". In the act they danced
together in the "old soft shoe", sang together in
close harmony ballards of World War 1 era, and
exchanged quips and jokes similiar to the type of
act that George with Gracie did in "The Burns and Allen" show.


Once the night club act finished, Dorothy then went after movie roles
and in quick succession she appeared in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World"
with a huge cast of world renown comedian in 1963. This was followed
by "Good Neighbour Sam" with Jack Lemmon in 1964. In 1965 she
appeared in "That Darn Cat" with Dean Jones (from which this next
set of 4 photos were "staged" as promotional material for the film.

Dorothy next appeared in "The Great Race" also in 1965. She appeared
with a great class of actors including Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis,
Natalie Wood, Peter Falk (before his Columbo role and he played such
a fantastic funny role) and Keenan Wynn. Dorothy had a great musical
number whereshe danced and sang a strange song called
"He Should't-a, Hadn't-a, Oughtn't-a Swang On Me".

Her next film roll was in 1967 called "Who's Minding The Mint"
with Jim Hutton, Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Bob Denver (Gilligan's
Island), Walter Brennan and Jamie Farr (Klinger from "Mash")
It wasn't a great movie but it had a bloody good cast).
The final film she appeared in was "Never A Dull Moment" with
Dick Van Dyke". Unfortunately it was a dull moment.



Dorothy abruptly left the business in 1969 after marrying director
Robert Day. They had one child. Robert Day was a very successful TV
and movie director and he directed a huge volume of shows.
To this day Dorothy Provine and Robert Day live a happy retired life in Southern California.