"Mad World" Actress Dorothy Provine Dies at 75

Actress Dorothy Provine, best known for her roles as Milton Berle's wife and Ethel Merman's daughter in the 1963 film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and the high-kicking flapper in the 1960s TV series "The Roaring 20s," has died. She was 75.

Her husband of 43 years, movie director Robert Day, said Friday that Provine died from emphysema on April 25 at Silverdale's Hospice of Kitsap County, about 10 miles northwest of Bremerton. He said there won't be a funeral.

"She was so beautiful," Day said from his Bainbridge Island home in Washington

Provine's movie credits also include "Bonnie Parker Story" and "Live Fast, Die Young" in 1958, "The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock" and "Riot in Juvenile Prison" in 1959, "Good Neighbor Sam" in 1964, "That Darn Cat!" and "The Great Race" in 1965 and "Never a Dull Moment" in 1968.

In her notorious role in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," Provide played Emmeline Marcus Finch, the only character in the film not obsessed with finding $350,000 in buried treasure.

Provine also played leggy flapper Pinky Pinkham on ABC-TV's "The Roaring 20s" from 1960 to 1962 (Time magazine wrote in 1961 that her "oooohing and shimmying" kept the series afloat), and she appeared on such shows as "77 Sunset Strip," "Hawaiian Eye," "Sugarfoot," "Wagon Train" and "Mike Hammer."

Besides her husband, Provine is survived by her son, Robert Day, and her sisters, Susan Cameron of Silverdale and Patricia Coldiron of California.