Pittsburgh Cinematic Archivist Attempts To Revive Interest In '50s Hollywood Movie Star

PITTSBURGH, PA — Decades after fading from the silver screen, 195os Hollywood actress Joan Dixon is stepping back into the spotlight courtesy of cinematic archivist Steve Segal of Mt. Lebanon.

Segal, a former Pittsburgh journalist, has launched a new digital repository, the Joan Dixon Reference Archive, that reconstructs the life and career of the forgotten RKO contract player. The meticulously assembled archive draws on contemporary newspapers and magazines, studio records, interviews and other archival sources to document Dixon's films, career and personal life.

Dixon (1930–1992) was an actress and model born in Virginia and primarily raised in the Miami area. She starred in eight RKO Radio Pictures films released from 1950 through 1952 and played the leading lady opposite Western star Tim Holt in five Richard Martin 'Chito' westerns. Dixon is perhaps best known for playing Diane Morley, a grifter with a heart of gold, in the 1951 RKO film noir "Roadblock." Her movie career was closely tied to reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, who held her under contract.

Dixon and Hughes had a personal as well as professional relationship. The repository features a previously unpublished 53-minute audio interview that sheds light on their little-known romantic relationship.

Dixon said she had been involved in an on-and-off romantic relationship with Hughes for almost a decade, beginning around the summer of 1948, when she was 18, and continuing until her 1952 marriage. She said the relationship resumed after her marriage and continued until Hughes married actress Jean Peters in 1957.

According to Segal, although there are brief references to a Hughes-Dixon relationship, it has received little attention in published accounts of either Hughes or Dixon.

In addition, newly digitized Howard Hughes Film Production Records include Dixon's three contracts with Hughes Productions, as well as loan agreements, timecards and internal memoranda. Selected documents relevant to Dixon's career and her connection with Hughes are reproduced in the archive. The internal studio documents, never intended for public release, offer a rare glimpse into the workings of RKO Radio Pictures and the studio's relationship with one of its contract actresses.

The archive also features hundreds of rare photographs of Dixon, two complete pressbooks for her films and her official 1950 RKO Radio Pictures studio biography — extraordinarily scarce pieces of studio publicity that offer a unique glimpse into how RKO presented her to the public.