Early career A year after graduation from high school, Dahl lived in
Chicago, where she worked as a buyer for Marshall and Brown. She then traveled to New York City and worked as a model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency, where she successfully auditioned for a part in the musical
Mr. Strauss Goes to Boston in 1945. This led to her gaining the lead in another play,
Questionable Ladies, which was seen by a talent scout from
Hollywood. She remained there to play the female lead in the
Red Skelton comedy
A Southern Yankee (1948). MGM gave Dahl the lead in several
B movies, such as
Inside Straight (1951) and
No Questions Asked (1951), both of which flopped.
Adventure films , by Virgil Apger, 1954 Dahl was hired by
Pine-Thomas Productions to a multiple-picture contract. She was cast in
Caribbean Gold (1952), a
swashbuckler starring
John Payne. She went to
Universal-International to co-star with
Alan Ladd in a
French Foreign Legion story,
Desert Legion (1953); then Pine-Thomas used her again in
Jamaica Run (1953) and
Sangaree (1953). The latter starred
Fernando Lamas, whom Dahl later married. She supported
Bob Hope in the comedy
Here Come the Girls (1953). Dahl and Lamas reunited on
The Diamond Queen (1953) at Warner Bros. In 1953, Dahl played Roxanne on stage in a short-lived revival of
Cyrano de Bergerac opposite
Jose Ferrer. Dahl played the ambitious Carol Talbot in ''
Woman's World'' (1954) at Fox, and she was
Rock Hudson's leading lady in Universal's adventure war film
Bengal Brigade (1954). She began writing a syndicated beauty
column in 1952, Dahl was both a mystery guest (April 25, 1954) and a panelist on the
CBS game show ''
What's My Line?''. In 1953, she hosted
ABC's anthology series
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse. John Payne and Dahl were reunited in a
film noir,
Slightly Scarlet (1956), alongside
Rhonda Fleming, another red-haired star. Dahl made some films in England for Columbia:
Wicked as They Come (1956) and
Fortune Is a Woman (1957). In 1957, she sued Columbia for $1 million, saying the film's advertisements for
Wicked as They Come were "lewd" and "degraded" her. A judge threw out the suit. Dahl hosted the short-lived television series
Opening Night (1958) and had the female lead in the adventure movie
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), opposite
James Mason and
Pat Boone. She fainted from doing the whirlpool scene in the latter, but it turned out to be one of her most successful films.
1960s In 1960, she appeared in the TV series
Riverboat in the role of Lucy Belle in the episode "That Taylor Affair". The same year, she married Texas oilman Christian Holmes and announced her retirement from acting. The marriage did not last, but Dahl increasingly diversified her work to become a lecturer and beauty consultant while she continued acting. She had a supporting role in
Kisses for My President (1964) and appeared in
Land Raiders (1969),
The Pleasure Pit (1969), and the French film
Du blé en liasses. She also appeared on TV in ''
Burke's Law and Theatre of Stars''. Her focus by now was on business. After closing her company in 1967, she began serving as vice president at the advertising agency
Kenyon and Eckhardt that same year.
1970s Dahl also returned to
Broadway in the early 1970s, replacing
Lauren Bacall in the role of
Margo Channing in
Applause. On television, she had a role on the soap opera
One Life to Live and guest-starred on
Love, American Style,
Jigsaw John,
Fantasy Island, and
The Love Boat. She also made a TV movie,
The Deadly Dream (1971). "I like acting," she said in 1978, "but I had better like business better or I'll lose my shirt."
1980s and 1990s In 1981, Dahl declared personal bankruptcy, with liabilities of almost $1 million and assets of only $623,970. Her chief creditor was the
U.S. Small Business Administration, which guaranteed a $450,000 loan for her as an executive in a cosmetics firm. She had lost $163,000 from burglaries of jewelry and furs from her
Manhattan apartment, and she earned only $11,367 in 1980 and $10,517 in 1979. Dahl appeared on ABC's soap opera
One Life to Live from 1981 to 1984 as Lucinda Schenck Wilson. The character was planned as a short-term role (she guest-starred from late 1981 to early 1982 and in late 1982), but Dahl later was offered a one-year contract to appear on the series from September 1983 to October 1984. In 1988, she starred in the film
A Place to Hide. Her last feature film role, which followed a hiatus of more than two decades, was in
Night of the Warrior (1991). It co-starred her son
Lorenzo Lamas. She entered the field of
astrology in the 1980s, writing a syndicated column and later operating a
premium phoneline company. Dahl wrote more than two dozen books on the topics of beauty and astrology. Dahl guest-starred on episodes of shows starring her son,
Renegade and
Air America. == Business ventures ==