Constance Dowling — Acting | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Constance Dowling (July 24, 1920 – October 28, 1969) was an American model turned actress of the 1940s and 1950s.

Dowling had been involved in a long affair with married director Elia Kazan in New York. He couldn't bring himself to leave his wife and the affair ended when Dowling went to Hollywood under contract to Goldwyn. She was later linked with the famous Italian poet and novelist Cesare Pavese who committed suicide in 1950 after a lifelong depression aggravated, at one point, by having been rejected by Dowling who, in Pavese's poetry, is often linked to spring ("face of springtime"). One of his last poems is entitled "Death will come and she'll have your eyes".

In 1955, Dowling married film producer Ivan Tors, writer and producer of her last film. (Another source, published two years earlier, refers to Dowling and Tors as "honeymooning.") She then retired from acting, going on to have three sons and a foster child with Tors.

In early 1964, Dowling introduced John C. Lilly to LSD for the first time.

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