Famous Actress Is Dead
Arlene Dahl, the actress whose charm and striking red hair shone in Technicolor movies of the 1950s, died on Monday in New York City at age 96.
Dahl’s son, actor Lorenzo Lamas, announced her death in posts on Facebook and Instagram. No cause of death was given.
‘Mom passed away this morning in New York. She was the most positive influence on my life. I will remember her laughter, her joy, her dignity as she navigated the challenges that she faced,’ Lamas, 63, posted on Instagram along with a glamorous photo of his mother
Dahl co-starred with Bob Hope in 1953’s ‘Here Come the Girls,’ provided the love interest for Skelton in 1950’s ‘Watch the Birdie´’ and played the hero´s sweetheart in such adventures as 1952’s ‘Caribbean’ with John Payne, 1953’s ‘Jamaica Run’ with Ray Milland and 1954’s ‘Bengal Brigade’ with Rock Hudson.
The Minnesota native became as famous for her six marriages as for her acting career. Her husbands included screen performers Fernando Lamas and Lex Barker, Fleischman’s yeast heir Christopher Holmes, wine importer Alexis Lichine and investor Rounsevelle Schaum.
Dahl was wed to businessman Marc Rosen for the last 37 years of her life.
When her movie career ended, Dahl remained prominent in television, including a three-year stint in the soap opera One Life To Live in the mid 1980s.
She made frequent appearances on ‘The Love Boat’ in the 1980s, and guest-starred on her son Lamas´ series ‘Renegade’ and ‘Air America’ in the late 1990s.
Dahl also was active in the lifestyle business, with a syndicated column on beauty tips, a perfume, and lingerie and exercise outfits she designed herself. In the 1960s, Dahl wrote an advice book, ‘Always Ask a Man: Arlene Dahl’s Key to Femininity.’
Her marriage to Barker was her first; it lasted seven months.
‘Lex was the best undressed man I’ve ever known,’ she said in a frank 1985 People magazine interview.
The marriage to Lamas ended after seven years when he left her for Esther Williams.
Of Norwegian descent, Dahl was born in 1925 in Minneapolis, where her father was a Ford dealer. Stage struck in high school, she joined a drama group and made her way to New York, where she modeled and appeared in Broadway plays.
