Joan Dixon
Encyclopedia
Joan Dixon was an American film and television actress in the 1950s. She is known for her role in the film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

, Roadblock (1951).

Biography

Dixon's career, while under contract at RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...

, was in the hands of Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

. He attempted but failed to make her into the star he made of Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....

 (whom Dixon resembled). Hughes had personal contracts with Dixon, Russell, and Janis Carter
Janis Carter
Janis Carter was a film and television actress working in the 1940s and 1950s.After attending Mather College in Cleveland, Ohio, Carter headed to New York in an attempt to start an opera career. Although unsuccessful in opera, she was working on Broadway where she was spotted on stage by Darryl F...

.

In September 1952, it was revealed that Hughes had an agreement with the Ralph E. Stolkin syndicate to lend RKO Pictures the sum of $8,000,000. The loan commitment was made as part of a sales accord following losses sustained by RKO in the previous two years. Earlier Hughes controlled RKO-Radio studio.

Joan eloped and married Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 camera manufacturer Theodore (Ted) Briskin in October 1952. Briskin was formerly the husband of Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer.-Early life:Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg, daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg and his wife, the former Mabel Lum . While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for...

, having married and divorced her twice. Dixon and Briskin were married in a surprise ceremony in the wedding chapel of the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

. She was 23 and he was 35. Their marriage lasted but three weeks, with Miss Dixon leaving Briskin in early November 1952. She was later married to writer William Dixon, but they divorced in 1959.

The actress appeared in ten films (mostly westerns) and appeared on a few television programs. Her television appearances include episodes of The Ford Television Theater (1957) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...

(1956).

She also performed as a vocalist at Dino's Lodge in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 in December 1960.

She passed away on February 20, 1992 in Los Angeles at age sixty-one.

External links

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