BIO

Dorris Bowdon was born Dorris Estelle Bowdon in Coldwater, Mississippi, in 1914.

After winning the 1937 Miss Memphis Beauty Pageant, she headed for Hollywood.

Bowdon made her big screen debut, at the age of 25, in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) starring Henry Fonda.   She appeared in 7 features before retiring after the birth of her first child in 1943.

She met the producer/screenwriter Nunnally Johnson, who was at the time adapting John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath for the screen.   Even though he was 18 years her senior, the two were married in 1939.   They raised three children.   He passed away in 1977.   Her grandchildren include the actor Jack Johnson and the music editor Gene N. Fowler.

Bowdon died of heart failure in Los Angeles, in 2005, at the age of 90.

Additional biographical information is available at:

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