Abby Dalton

Life and career

Dalton was born Marlene Wasden on August 15, 1932, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dalton had three children by her marriage to Jack Smith, including actress Kathleen Kinmont. Kinmont was married to Lorenzo Lamas, Dalton's onscreen son in Falcon Crest.

Television

Dalton made numerous appearances on television. James Garner and Clint Eastwood engaged in a fist fight over Dalton's character in the episode "Duel at Sundown" of Maverick. In 1958, she appeared as Eloise Barton in an episode of the Western series Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards as a crusading frontier journalist.

In January 1959, Dalton was cast as Elizabeth Bingham in the episode "The Desperadoes" of the series Sugarfoot, starring Will Hutchins in the title role.

Dalton played nurse Martha Hale on Hennesey (she was nominated for Emmy Award for her role) with Jackie Cooper in the title role, and she portrayed Joey Bishop's wife on The Joey Bishop Show from 1961 to 1965. As the Hennessey series was ending, The Joey Bishop Show was preparing for its premiere on NBC. Dalton played the role of Ellie Barnes, the wife of Joey Barnes (Bishop). As the show premiered on September 15, 1962, Dalton and Bishop are shown as newlyweds Ellie and Joey Barnes. Hennessey's finale was aired two days later on September 17, 1962, with Martha Hale's marriage to Chick Hennessey. Hence, Dalton portrayed being married to two different television characters on two different networks within two days.

Dalton was a semiregular panelist on NBC and syndicated Match Game and appeared in the early years of Hollywood Squares. Dalton also appeared on Super Password, with Bert Convy as the host, and guest-starred on the NBC interview program, Here's Hollywood.

Dalton was cast in the original pilot for what became the ABC series Barney Miller as Barney's wife. However, this version of the pilot, for a show called The Days and Nights of Captain Barney Miller, was rejected by the network, and the role was recast with Barbara Barrie. In 1977, she appeared in an episode of the ABC crime drama The Feather and Father Gang.

In the 1980s, Dalton played winemaker Julia Cumson on CBS's Falcon Crest. In the show, Julia is the daughter of Angela Channing (Jane Wyman) and the mother of Lance Cumson (Lorenzo Lamas). Julia was at quiet odds with her mother, Angela, and for the show's first two seasons, she was troubled but basically decent woman. In the second season finale, however, she was revealed to be a murderess. Much of the third season focused on her dealing with life both in prison and a mental institution, and towards the end of the season, her character escaped from the mental institution to try to kill her mother. Julia was believed to have been killed in the second to last episode, but soon into the fourth season, she was revealed to be still alive. She returned sporadically during the fifth and sixth seasons, but did not reappear after 1986. After leaving the series, Dalton had guest-starring roles on Hotel and Murder, She Wrote.

Abby also was a TV gameplayer and regular on Stump the Stars (1964) and also PDQ (1970).

Film

During 1950s, Dalton played small parts in films Teenage Doll, Carnival Rock, and The High Cost of Loving. Her first leading role was in the 1957 film Rock All Night produced by American International Pictures. The following year, she starred in Stakeout on Dope Street, Girls on the Loose, and Cole Younger, Gunfighter. In 1966, Dalton played Calamity Jane in The Plainsman with Don Murray, and appeared in the rarely seen film A Whale of a Tale (1976), with William Shatner and Marty Allen. Her later films included the Don "The Dragon" Wilson movie CyberTracker (1994), Buck and the Magic Bracelet (1999), and the horror film Prank (2008).