Dorothy Malone, who won an Oscar for her sultry role in the 1956 film "Written on the Wind" and starred in the television soap opera "Peyton Place," died Friday in Dallas, The New York Times reported. She was 93.
Malone’s daughter, Mimi Vanderstraaten, confirmed her mother’s death, the Times reported. Malone died a few days short of her 94th birthday at the assisted living facility where she had spent the last 10 years of her life.
Malone earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Marylee Hadley, the promiscuous daughter of a Texas oil tycoon, in Douglas Sirk's 1956 drama, Entertainment Weekly reported. Malone performed a memorable mambo dance in the movie and made a play for Rock Hudson in the steamy melodrama. She starred along with Hudson, Robert Stack and Lauren Bacall.
On television, Malone portrayed Constance Mackenzie in more than 400 episodes of “Peyton Place” from 1964 to 1968. “Peyton Place,” based on the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious. Her character had a dark secret about the birth of her daughter, played by 19-year-old Mia Farrow, and it led to a rating hit as television’s first nighttime soap opera, the Times reported.
Malone would reprise her role in two television movies, “Murder in Peyton Place” in 1977 and “Peyton Place: The Next Generation,” in 1985.
Malone’s final movie appearance came in “Basic Instinct,” when she portrayed Hazel Dobkins, a mother accused of murdering her family, Entertainment Weekly reported.
“I came up with a conviction that most of the winners in this business became stars overnight by playing shady dames with sex appeal,” Malone said in 1967. “And I've been unfaithful or drunk or oversexed almost ever since — on the screen, of course.”
