Dianne Foster was a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent.
Early life
Foster was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She began her career at the age of 13 in a stage adaptation of James Barrie's What Every Woman Knows. In London in 1951, she appeared on stage in Agatha Christie'sThe Hollow and Orson Welles's Othello. At 14 she began a radio career, subsequently moved to Toronto, and became one of Canada's top radio stars, working with Andrew Allan, drama supervisor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on productions such as Stage '49. She appeared on Radio Luxembourg in a broadcast of The Lives of Harry Lime. She married Andrew Allan in 1951.
Film
In March 1952, her husband returned to Canada while she stayed in London, England, to honor her five-year contract with a British film company. In 1953, she co-starred alongside Charlton Heston and Lizabeth Scott in the middling Bad for Each Other. In 1954, she was signed by Columbia Pictures and relocated to Hollywood, where her first appearance proper that year was with Mickey Rooney in Drive a Crooked Road. In 1955, Foster appeared on the cover of Picturegoer and co-starred in two films, Glenn Ford's The Violent Men and Burt Lancaster's The Kentuckian. Although her film career continued, it was not on the same upward trajectory as before. In 1957 she co-starred in the biopic Monkey on My Back about boxer Barney Ross, Night Passage with James Stewart and The Brothers Rico with Richard Conte. In 1958, she starred with Alan Ladd in The Deep Six, and that same year she appeared alongside Jack Hawkins in Gideon of Scotland Yard before her last really big picture, The Last Hurrah. It featured an all-star cast that included Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, and Basil Rathbone, and was nominated for a BAFTA award. In 1963, she made her last film appearance, in the Dean Martin vehicle Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?.
Television
In 1960, Foster was the title guest star in the episode "Lawyer in Petticoats" on the short-lived NBCwestern series Overland Trail starring William Bendix and Doug McClure. Foster also appeared in 1960 in three other NBC westerns Bonanza, Wagon Train, and Riverboat. Also in 1960 she appeared in Have Gun Will Travel Series 4, Episode 20. There was a three-year absence before she next returned to the big screen in King of the Roaring 20's - The Story of Arnold Rothstein. Gunsmoke season 7 episode 23 "Reprisal" Cornelia. Foster continued to appear in television programs, such as the Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Lord of Limbo," CBS's The Lloyd Bridges Show and the ABCmedical dramaBreaking Point and in The Fugitive. She guest starred in the ABC drama Going My Way, starring Gene Kelly. She made four guest appearances on Perry Mason between 1962 and 1965, and appeared in the "Caesar's Wife" episode of The Big Valley in 1966.
Personal life and later years
In 1951, Foster married Andrew Allan, head radio drama supervisor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in London. They soon divorced, as in 1954 she married Joel A. Murcott, a Hollywood radio-television scriptwriter, in Owensboro, Kentucky. On February 14, 1956, she gave birth to twins: a son, Jason, and a daughter, Jodi. That same year she also filed for divorce from Murcott. She asked for custody and $1 in token alimony. The couple reconciled, but it proved to be temporary as they separated twice more before finally divorcing in 1959. In 1961 Foster married her third husband, Harold Rowe, a Van Nuysdentist. On November 14, 1963, her son, Dustin Louis Rowe, was born in Los Angeles. Foster died in July 2019 at the age of 90.
