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Actress Doris Dowling dead at 81
By Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Doris Dowling, the brunette actress who made her screen debut as the hooker in Billy Wilder's classic 1945 drama "The Lost Weekend," has died at age 81, her husband said Monday. Dowling, who had been in deteriorating health since a heart attack five years ago, died Friday at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, her husband Leonard B. Kaufman told The Associated Press. The Detroit-born actress started her career on the stage before coming to Hollywood with her sister, the late actress Constance Dowling. In her next movie, the Raymond Chandler-scripted "The Blue Dahlia," she played the murder victim in a mystery that starred Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
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New York Times, 28 June 2004:
Doris Dowling, 81, Is Dead Known for Classic Films of 40's
Doris Dowling, who made an impression as a husky-voiced character actress in the film classics "The Lost Weekend," "The Blue Dahlia" and "Bitter Rice," died on June 18 in Los Angeles. She was 81.
Her death was announced by Lee Redmond, a family friend.
Ms. Dowling was the brunette sibling of a well-known blond actress of the era, Constance Dowling. The sisters appeared together when Doris made her Broadway debut in the 1940 hit musical "Panama Hattie."
She was back on Broadway briefly in "Banjo Eyes" (1941), "Beat the Band" (1942), "New Faces of 1943" and, later, in a revival of "The Women" (1973). But she spent the better part of her career in Hollywood and in Italy, where Constance had gone to work as an expatriate.
After an unheralded beginning in an earlier Raymond Chandler movie, "And Now Tomorrow" (1944), she made an auspicious appearance in "The Lost Weekend" (1945), an Oscar-winning film starring Ray Milland as an alcoholic. Ms. Dowling played Gloria, the available barfly with a heart whom he meets on his downward spiral.
In "The Blue Dahlia" (1946), a Raymond Chandler thriller starring Alan Ladd, she was the faithless wife who is murdered.
In Italy, Ms. Dowling took the part of Francesca, a gangster moll hiding among rice workers, in "Riso Amaro" (1949). The film gave the actress Silvana Mangano her sensational start and opened as "Bitter Rice" in this country in 1950.
Ms. Dowling made several more pictures in Italy and France, among them Orson Welles's version of "Othello" (1952), in which she played the small role of Bianca; Welles portrayed the Moor.
After returning to this country, she was a frequent guest star on television into the 1980's, and appeared often on the stage in Los Angeles.
Ms. Dowling was married three times. In 1952 she became the seventh of the bandleader Artie Shaw's eight wives. Her marriage to him was dissolved, but their son, Jonathan Shaw, survives, according to The Associated Press. In 1960 she married Leonard B. Kaufman, a television producer, who also survives her.
Constance Dowling died in Los Angeles in 1969. She was 49.
Copyright (c) 2004 The New York Times Company
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Los Angeles Times (CA), Obituaries, June 21, 2004:
Doris Dowling, 81; Film Star in U.S., Italy
Doris Dowling, the deep-voiced brunette actress who made her screen debut as the hooker in Billy Wilder's classic "The Lost Weekend," has died. She was 81.
Dowling died Friday in Los Angeles of natural causes.
Born in Detroit, Dowling began acting on stage and then followed her older sister, the late actress Constance Dowling, to Hollywood.
Doris Dowling captured major attention -- even Oscar buzz -- in Wilder's 1945 film about alcoholism, which earned Academy Awards for best picture, actor (Ray Milland), director (Wilder) and screenplay (by Wilder and Charles Brackett).
"Her performance as the girl in the bar in 'The Lost Weekend,' distinguished by the way she clips off words, will, it is believed, almost entitle her to academy recognition," wrote Times entertainment columnist Edwin Schallert on Dec. 2, 1945.
It didn't, but Dowling had made an impression. She was soon cast in another memorable film, the Raymond Chandler-scripted "The Blue Dahlia," starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
Despite Dowling's quick double success, she soon found herself caught in Hollywood's postwar slump. With no scripts coming her way, she followed her sister to Rome, where both spent several years working in Italian films.
Director Giuseppe de Santis was impressed by the younger Dowling's dark hair, soulful eyes, alabaster complexion and deep voice, which colleagues saw as "the face of Italy." If she brushed up on her Italian, de Santis told her, she could become the star of his new film "Bitter Rice" -- as the jewelry thief hiding among and transformed by the Mondinas, or women rice workers, in Northern Italy's Po Valley.
Like actual workers paid as extras, Dowling and co-star Silvana Mangano worked from morning to night in waist-deep water. When the film wrapped, Dowling needed time off to recuperate.
"It was frightfully humid," Dowling told The Times after returning to Los Angeles in 1950. "We really lived the life of the people who work in the fields."
The highly lauded, low-budget picture, along with "Open City" and a handful of others showing the realities of Italian life after World War II, helped rebuild the country's film industry and secure its place in international theaters.
Dowling made five other films in Italy and France, including one in English, Orson Welles' "Othello."
The actress continued working intermittently until near the end of her life. She amassed credits in a dozen feature films, numerous stage plays encompassing the works of Shakespeare and more than 100 television shows, from the live "Playhouse 90" through such series as "Bonanza," "Barnaby Jones" and "The Dukes of Hazzard." She also appeared in miniseries, including 1980's "Scruples."
She served on the board of directors of Los Angeles' Theater East.
Dowling married three times. She was the seventh wife of bandleader Artie Shaw, whom she married in 1952 and divorced in 1956. She was married to United Artists executive Robert F. Blumofe from 1956 until their divorce in 1959.
In 1960, she married publicist Leonard B. Kaufman, who survives. Dowling is also survived by one son, Jonathan Shaw.
No services were planned.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
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