Angeline Brown (nicknamed “Angie” by family and friends) was born on September 30, 1931, in Kulm, North Dakota, to Fredericka (née Hehr) and Leo Henry Brown. Her family was descended from Germans from Russia, and she was raised Catholic.
Her father was a small-town newspaper publisher and editor who worked for the Kulm Messenger and the Edgeley Mail. Her father was the projectionist at the town’s only movie theater until it burned down, so she was exposed to movies at a young age.
The Brown family moved to Burbank, California, when Angie was 10 years old, and she attended Bellarmine-Jefferson High School, graduating in 1947 at the age of 15. She had won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Essay Contest the previous year. She then attended Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles and Glendale Community College, graduating with a business degree in 1954.
She had planned to be a writer, taking after her publisher’s father. During her studies, she worked as a secretary at the Lockheed Air Terminal in Burbank (now Bob Hope Airport) and in a parts factory. When she married football player Gene Dickinson in 1952, she changed her name to Angie Dickinson.
Angie Dickinson’s daughter: Who was Lea Nikki Bacharach?
Nikki was the only child of Mr. Bacharach and his second wife, Angie Dickinson, 75, whom he married in 1965.