Dorothy Malone: Oscar-winning actor famed for The Big Sleep and Written on the Wind dies aged 93

She also played the mysterious Constance McKenzie on ABC's Peyton Place from 1964 to 1968

Malone c.1940 en route to a career that spanned half a century and included a starring role in America’s first primetime soap opera

Actor Dorothy Malone died on Friday in her hometown of Dallas, aged 93.

Signed by RKO at age 18, she spent much of her early career in supporting roles in B-movies, largely in Westerns. "The only thing I did at RKO of any note was lose my Texas accent," she joked of her time with the studio, though she fared little better when she transitioned to Warner Bros.

That said, one of her most beloved performances happens to come from this relatively unfruitful period, when she played the bespectacled bookshop clerk who seduced Humphrey Bogart's Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1946).

After 11 years of failing to break the big time, Malone took a gamble: she dyed her hair platinum blonde, shed her good girl image, and took on the role of the alcoholic, sex-addicted daughter of a Texas oil baron, in love with Rock Hudson's geologist character in 1956's Written on the Wind.

“I came up with a conviction that most of the winners in this business became stars overnight by playing shady dames with sex appeal,” she recalled in 1967. It worked, and the part won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Though she followed up the win with roles in Too Much, Too Soon (1958), Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), Warlock (1959), The Tarnished Angels (1957), and The Last Sunset (1961), her career fell into decline after she reached 40. She turned to TV, where she played the mysterious Constance McKenzie on ABC's Peyton Place from 1964 to 1968.

She was absent for a brief stretch of the show in 1965, when she was in critical condition for almost two weeks after undergoing surgery to remove a blood clot from her lungs. Lola Albright filled in until her return. She was written out of the show's final season after complaining that her character's storylines were lacklustre. Malone sued 20th Century Fox for $1.6 million for breach of contract. The matter was settled out of court.

Malone passed away in an assisted living centre from natural causes days before her 94th birthday, said her daughter, Mimi Vanderstraaten.

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