Before her career took off, Cannon was married to Cary Grant for three years and gave birth to his only child, daughter Jennifer. Reluctant to discuss the marriage since their 1968 divorce, Cannon turned down publishing deals following Grant's death in 1986. Her memoir Dear Cary (2011) became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2023, the book was adapted into a miniseries called Archie with Cannon executive producing.
Early life
Cannon was born Samille Diane Friesen in Tacoma, Washington, on January 4, 1937, the daughter of housewife Claire (née Portnoy) and life insurance salesman Ben Friesen.[1] She was raised in the Jewish faith of her mother, who was an immigrant from Ukraine; her father was an Anabaptist of Canadian Mennonite ancestry.[2][3] Her younger brother is jazz musician David Friesen.[3] Cannon attended West Seattle High School and was crowned Miss West Seattle in 1954.[4] She spent two and a half semesters at the University of Washington, majoring in anthropology.[5][6]
In 1956, Cannon dropped out of college and went to live with her aunt Sally in Phoenix, Arizona, where she took a job at Merrill Lynch & Co.[7][8] Courted by nightclub owner Sonny Orling, then 32, she got engaged and followed him to Beverly Hills, California.[7][9] They soon parted, but she decided to stay in the area and enroll at UCLA.[8] A part-time modeling job led to an interview with producer Jerry Wald, who suggested she change her last name to Cannon.[a] She signed to MGM, doing promotional work for the film Les Girls, and studied with acting teacher Sanford Meisner.[7]
Career
Beginnings
Cannon made her film debut in 1960 in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond; she had appeared on television since the late 1950s, including a guest appearance on Bat Masterson as Mary Lowery in the 1959 episode "Lady Luck" and again in a 1961 episode as Diane Jansen in "The Price of Paradise". She appeared in 1959 on CBS's Wanted: Dead or Alive, in episode 52, "Vanishing Act", as Nicole McCready. About this time, she was on the CBS western Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durant, and on Jack Lord's western Stoney Burke on ABC. She also appeared on Hawaiian Eye in 1961, opposite Tracey Steele, Robert Conrad, and Connie Stevens.
In 1964 she guest-starred on Gunsmoke, playing Ivy Norton, an abused daughter looking to marry the man she loves in the episode "Aunt Thede". She portrayed Mona Elliott in the episode "The Man Behind the Man" of the 1964 CBS drama series The Reporter and had a regular role on the short-lived daytime soap opera Full Circle. Cannon also made guest appearances on 77 Sunset Strip, The Untouchables, Tombstone Territory, the 1960 episode "Sheriff of the Town" of the first-run syndicated western series Two Faces West with Walter Coy as Cauter and the 1962 Ripcord episode "The Helicopter Race" as Ripcord Inc.'s secretary and receptionist Marion Hines. She landed another role in a feature with The Murder Game (1965), then took four years off.
Cannon starred in her own musical stage act at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and Harrah's Lake Tahoe during the mid-1970s. She then enrolled in the Women's Directing Workshop of the American Film Institute. She became the first Oscar-nominated actress to be nominated in the Best Short Film, Live Action category for Number One (1976), a project which Cannon produced, directed, wrote and edited. It was a story about adolescent sexual curiosity.[16] In 1978, Cannon co-starred in Revenge of the Pink Panther. That same year, she appeared in Heaven Can Wait, for which she received another Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2005, she appeared in Boynton Beach Club, a movie about aging Floridians who have just lost their spouses; Cannon's real-life ex Michael Nouri played her love interest. Her later roles included A Kiss at Midnight (2008) for Hallmark and the unaired pilot Women Without Men (2010) with Lorraine Bracco and Penny Marshall. She wrote and directed another short, Unleashed (2010). Cannon returned to the stage to star in a 2013 production of Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway in Overland Park, Kansas.[6] After a hiatus from the screen, she acted in the equestrian themed family film Hope's Legacy (2021). Forgoing its scheduled opening at Baltimore's Senator Theatre due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was instead released to streaming platforms.[23][24]
Cannon published a bestselling memoir, Dear Cary: My Life with Cary Grant, in 2011.[25] She had previously been approached by Swifty Lazar to write about her late ex-husband in 1986, turning down "millions," and declined another publishing offer some years later from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, stating that there was still healing that needed to happen.[26] Cannon serves as executive producer of a four-part miniseries based on her book, entitled Archie, which premiered on BritBox in 2023 and stars Jason Isaacs as Grant and Laura Aikman as Cannon.[27]
Personal life
In 1961, Cannon began dating actor Cary Grant, who was 33 years her senior.[28] They married on July 22, 1965, and had one daughter, Jennifer (b. February 26, 1966). Cannon filed for divorce in September 1967, and it was finalized on March 21, 1968.[29]
Cannon married a second time on April 18, 1985, to lawyer-turned-real estate investor Stanley Fimberg.[30] They divorced in 1991.[31] In 2024, Cannon said she and Fimberg are still friends.[32]
Cannon has also been in relationships with comedian Mort Sahl, talent agent Ron Weisner and sculptor Carl Hartman, as well as producers Murray Shostak and Leonard Rabinowitz, directors Hal Ashby and Jerry Schatzberg, and actors Armand Assante, Hy Chase, Ron Ely and Michael Nouri.[20][22][33][34][35] She remains friendly with Nouri and accompanied him to a premiere four decades after their breakup.[36]
Cannon's experience as a single mother led to her becoming national spokeswoman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, which provides emotional support and companionship for children of one-parent homes.[44] She paid for the tombstone of slain runaway Alyssa Margie "Raven" Gomez, whom she'd met while making a documentary about homelessness.[45] Cannon has used her celebrity to benefit other charitable organizations, such as Special Olympics, for mentally and physically disabled athletes.[4] For 12 years, she hosted God's Party, a bi-weekly Bible study held at Radford Studio Center.[42][46]
