In the 1940s and ’50s, she was a movie actress and later an author, beauty expert, and fashion and cosmetics entrepreneur. She was 96 years old.
Her husband confirmed her death.
The Daily News of New York wrote in 1959 that she was considered one of the world's loveliest ladies.
She played the sister of a famous redhead in the crime drama "Slightly Scarlet", and her fiery red hair made her a natural for the film. She showed her range in westerns like "The Outriders" and "A Southern Yankee", but critics focused more on her looks than her acting.
One review of the1953 adventure "Diamond Queen" declared thatArlene Dahl is displayed to great advantage.
The industry did the same thing.
Eddie Muller, who organizes an annual film noir festival in San Francisco, said in an interview in 2009, that Ms. Dahl was a smart, fiercely funny woman being pigeonholed by her beauty. It was difficult for her to break out of the redheaded bombshell mold.
He said that she didn't let it bother her. She moved easily into other businesses and was happy.
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She was a natural for the company because of her fiery red hair.
When her film career was at its peak, Ms. Dahl started branching out.
She wrote a beauty column for 20 years for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. She was recruited by Robert R. McCormick, the publisher of The Tribune, who had an idea that if a girl like her taught women how to be beautiful, they would believe it.
She started a cosmetics and lingerie company and later wrote a syndicated astrology column as well as numerous books on both astrology and beauty.
After leaving Hollywood and moving to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, she kept her public eye with her ventures. She was seen on television shows like "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island" and "Renegade" after she stopped acting in the 1960s.
She played the lead role in the hit musical Applause on Broadway in 1972 and also appeared on the show.
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Ms. Dahl wrote many books on astrology and beauty.
On August 11, 1925, she was born in Minneapolis. Her father was a car dealer. Her mother died when she was a teenager. She relocated to New York City, where she continued to work as a model while pursuing acting, after her father approved her move to Chicago, where she modeled for the Marshall Field's department store.
She played a small part in a Broadway musical in 1945. She was invited to Hollywood for a screen test by Jack Warner, the movie mogul, after she appeared in a play in Philadelphia.
She began her movie career with Warner Bros., but soon moved to MGM, the leading studio of the day, where she first attracted notice with supporting roles in movies like "The Bride Goes Wild" and "Scene of the Crime" She was a regular in the Hollywood gossip columns and had two marriages to fellow actors.
She and Barker, who played Tarzan in the late 1940s and early ’50s, divorced in 1952 after a year and a half of marriage. She married Fernando Lamas two years later.
The marriage was tempestuous. The two had many public spats and reconciliations meant to preserve the union, but they ended in failure, Ms. Dahl said at the time, of their son, Lorenzo Lamas, who would go on to have a successful acting career of his own.
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The actor Lorenzo Lamas, his wife, and Ms. Dahl were in 1997.
Ms. Dahl and Mr. Lamas divorced in 1960. She would marry again and again. She married a perfume bottle designer. She is survived by her husband, Lorenzo Lamas; a son, Stephen Schaum, from her fifth marriage, to Rounsville Schaum; a daughter, Carole Delouvrier, from her third marriage, to Chris Holmes, and two great-grandchildren.
Many of Ms. Dahl's ideas about beauty seem quaint today, but they were the key to her initial success as a writer. She said in a 1963 interview that it was important to tell women what men think so they don't lose what they want.
When she started writing about astrology, she had similar success.
She was passionate about the subject but stopped short of saying astrology could predict the future.
She said in a 2001 CNN interview that astrology is similar to a weatherman. If the weatherman says it will rain tomorrow, you should take an umbrella because it is likely to rain and you don't want to get wet. It is the same thing with astrology.
Alex contributed to the reporting.
