Godspeed Abby Dalton

Actress Abby Dalton died on November 23 2020 at the age of 88. She had lead roles in three different hit TV shows: Hennesey, The Joey Bishop Show, and Falcon Crest. She also appeared in several American International Pictures movies early in her career.

Abby Dalton was born Gladys Marlene Wasden in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 15 2020. Before her acting career, she worked both as a model and as a dancer at the Sands Hotel. She later worked as a dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Hollywood. She made her film debut in Roger Coman's Rock All Night in 1957. In the late Fifties she appeared in a few more movies made by American International Pictures, including The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), and Carnival Rock (1957). During the Fifties she also appeared in the movies Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958), Girls on the Loose (1958), Stakeout on Dope Street (1958), and The High Cost of Loving (1958). She made her television debut on an episode of Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars (1958). She guest starred on the shows The Rifleman, Have Gun--Will Travel, Jefferson Drum, Sugarfoot, Maverick, Rawhide, Mike Hammer, and The Chevy Mystery Show. In the 1959 Abby Dalton was cast as Nurse Martha Hale, the romantic interest of lead character Lt. Chick Hennessey (played by Jackie Cooper), a Navy physician, on the TV show Hennessey.

Abby Dalton went straight from being the female lead on Hennessey to being the female lead on The Joey Bishop Show. In the final, first-run episode of Hennessey, which aired in May 1962, her character Martha Hale married Lt. Hennessey. In the first episode of the second season of The Joey Bishop Show, her character Ellie married Joey Barnes (played by Joey Bishop). Abby Dalton then figured in two television weddings only four months apart. In the Sixties she also guest starred on the TV shows Hawaiian Eye; The Danny Thomas Hour; My Three Sons; Nanny and the Professor; and Love, American Style. Late in the decade she was a regular on The Jonathan Winters Show. She appeared in the movie The Plainsman.

In the Seventies Miss Dalton guest starred on Love, American Style; Police Story; Apple's Way;  Adams of Eagle Lake; The Waltons; and The Feather and Father Gang. She played Barney Miller's wife in the pilot for Barney Miller, "The Life and Times of Barney Miller." ABC rejected the pilot and the show was retooled so that the entirety of the action took place at the precinct house. When Barney Miller's wife eventually appeared on the show, she was played by Barbara Barrie. She appeared in the movie A Whale of a Tale (1976).

In the Eighties she played the scheming Julia Cumson on the night time soap opera Falcon Crest. She also guest starred on the shows Hardcastle and McCormick; Murder, She Wrote; and Hotel. She appeared in the movie Roller Blade Warriors: Taken by Force (1989). In the Nineties she guest starred on the TV show L.A. Heat and appeared in the movies Cyber Tracker (1994) and Buck and the Magic Bracelet (1998). Her final appearance was in the movie Prank in 2008.

Abby Dalton also appeared regularly as a panellist on games shows from the Sixties to the Eighties. She was among the original panellists on The Hollywood Squares.

Older viewers might best remember Abby Dalton as the sweet natured Martha Hale on Hennessey and Ellie Barnes on The Joey Bishop Show. Slightly younger viewers might remember her best as the mentally disturbed Julia Cumson on Falcon Crest. That having been said, she played a wide variety of roles throughout her career. She was Calamity Jane in the movie The Plainsman. She played boutique owner Stella Lewis in The Waltons episode "The Test." On the Murder,, She Wrote episode "Obituary for a Dead Anchor," she played the widow of a murdered TV anchorman who is not at all grief stricken. Abby Dalton could play a wide variety of roles, from those that were sympathetic to those that were not at all sympathetic.