Perennial starlet Dorothy Abbott was a sexy vivacious widesmiling model showgirl and actress who could brighten up a room Unfortunately her cinematic offerings wound up being pretty minimal and her last years were marred by depression and ultimately a tragic end She was born Dorothy E Abbott on December 16 1920 in Kansas City Missouri and started her career off as a chorine with Earl Carroll and his Los Angelesbased revues and in Las Vegas showrooms where she was dubbed the rather mystifying title of The Girl with the Golden Arm Paramount Studios perked up on the lovely blonde with the Betty Pagelike bangs and gave her a starting contract at 150 a week Groomed in dozens of decorative good time girl bits dancers chorus girls waitresses stewardesses party girls nurses and models she was at the same time promoted as a cheesecake pinup winning such dubious titles as Miss Wilshire Club Miss Los Angeles Transit and Miss Oil Cans The duskyvoiced Dorothy was usually briefly seen and not heard in such dramatic and lightweight fare as The Razors Edge 1946 Road to Rio 1947 Night Has a Thousand Eyes 1948 in which she has her first speaking role as a maid Words and Music 1948 Take Me Out to the Ball Game 1949 Little Women 1949 Neptunes Daughter 1949 Annie Get Your Gun 1950 His Kind of Woman 1951 Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick 1952 The Las Vegas Story 1952 The Caddy 1953 Theres No Business Like Show Business 1954 Love Me or Leave Me 1955 Rebel Without a Cause 1955 Gunfight at the OK Corral 1957 Jailhouse Rock 1957 South Pacific 1958 The Apartment 1960 That Touch of Mink 1962 A Gathering of Eagles 1963 and Dear Heart 1964 Her one starring role came early in the exploitative lowbudget potboiler A Virgin in Hollywood 1953 as a star reporter out to get a seamy Hollywood story but she was unable to capitalize on it Working bit parts at the studio during the days she would often perform on stage in little theatre shows at night On the sly when work was meager she became a real estate agent in the 1950s in order to help supplement her income TV chores included guest roles in Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet She also had a recurring part for one season as Jack Webb s girlfriend on the Dragnet 1954 series Dorothy married LAPD narcotics squad officerturned homicide detective Adolph Rudy Diaz in 1949 Diaz who was of Native American Apache descent eventually retired as a cop in order to pursue acting By this time the marriage was in trouble and the couple separated Going by the stage name of Rudy Diaz in 1967 he began to get work and was seen out in public with other women The divorce was finalized in 1968 but Dorothy took it hard and never seemed to get over it On December 15 1968 she committed suicide at her Los Angeles home one day before her 48th birthday She was interred as Dorothy E Diaz at Rose Hills Memorial Park Whittier Los Angeles County California Plot Valley Lawn Lot 2939
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