"This was fine, this was just fine, but I think I’ve had it as a character actress. Next time I want to play Meryl Streep’s mother in the sequel to ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ Lots of makeup and big hair and dangly earrings!"

That’s the great Angie Dickinson, laughing over her role in the new Hallmark movie, "Mending Fences," which airs on July 18.

In it, Angie, she of "Rio Bravo," "Pretty Maids All in a Row," "Big Bad Mama," "Dressed to Kill" and, but of course, TV’s "Police Woman" fame, plays a rural woman fighting the encroachments of unsavory city folk who are out to ruin her town. She also faces failing eyesight. She is very convincing, but – as she is wont – brushes aside compliments. "I was … OK."

"I liked that the character was stubborn, and I would have welcomed more of that in her, but as she is going blind, you can only be so stubborn, you know. She was frightened, naturally, about losing her eyesight. I even wore boots a size too small – they killed my feet! – so I would move more awkwardly, be more hesitant, as I assume one would as sight fails." Angie even changed her vocal cadence, because the famous, slightly scratchy, sexy voice I hear over the phone now sounds nothing like the wary quilt-making lady of "Mending Fences."

Angie says, "Look, this is Reader’s Digest fare – good Reader’s Digest. But I’d rather have a role with more meat, more action. I wish Hallmark did movies like that. But I’m not complaining. It’s work and the Hallmark people were really lovely to me."


Angie Dickinson in "Mending Fences"/Image courtesy of Hallmark

***

Angie Dickinson is one of the great women, broads and just plain people you’d ever hope to meet. She came up in Hollywood just as the old studio system was fading out, and the industry never quite knew what to do with her. She was wry, enigmatic, a knockout, but not at all cookie-cutter in her looks, and always there was some tense vulnerability, some holding back. She did so much with her voice and her eyes. (This vulnerability is what made the fate of her "Dressed to Kill" character all the more shocking and heartbreaking.)

Angie, though modest, recognizes this quality in herself. "I don’t think I’m ever that convincing as a ‘bad woman.’ I am very sensitive and I care a lot, and I think that comes through no matter how I’m cast." She laughs: "Maybe all it means is that I’m not such a great actress!" She is, but that elusive quality – not to mention the killer legs immortalized on the cover of Esquire in 1966 – sometimes obscured her talent. (In case you don’t know, it was Angie opposite Frank Sinatra in the original "Ocean’s Eleven." And I’m sure even the wonderful Julia Roberts, who played the same role in the remake, would agree Angie aced that character!) And I must say, Angie was quite wicked – and campy! – in the fabulous cult 1993 TV miniseries "Wild Palms."


Image: Esquire

Her special vibe also infused "Police Woman," the groundbreaking TV series that put her on the map, as a star to be reckoned with, at long last. (There would be no Mariska Hargitay on "Law & Order: SVU" without Angie’s Sgt. Pepper Anderson.) Angie says, "I loved that role, and I think it would be hard to cast and write for today – that combination of courage, wit and heart that she had." Angie is happy that "Police Woman’s" first season (her favorite) is finally out on DVD, but we both bemoaned the odd way these shows are released, in piecemeal. The star says, "If they think there’s an audience, though maybe a limited one, why not simply release all four seasons with a big bang, a box set?"