The TV couple 'married' just before the demise of the sitcom in 1962. She eventually earned a steady role on Jackie Cooper's Hennesey (1959) series and both actors received Emmy nominations for their roles - she playing his girlfriend.

The blonde, toothy beauty fared much better on TV starting in the late 1950s, popping up on several TV's best known westerns ( Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), The Rifleman (1958), Sugarfoot (1957)). Outside the Corman fold, she appeared in the equally low-budgeted and exploitable Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958) and Girls on the Loose (1958). Corman continued to use her in his films, some with and some without billing, including Teenage Doll (1957), Carnival Rock (1957), Stakeout on Dope Street (1958), and the absurdly-titled The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), in which she played Desir, a stalwart leader of Nordic women in search for men, after presumably losing their own at sea. An acting company member for writer/producer Roger Corman beginning in 1957, Abby made her dubious debut in the low-grade beatnik film, Rock All Night (1957), in which she and others are trapped and held hostage in a bar by a pair of killers. She was born Gladys Marlene Wasden on Augin Las Vegas, Nevada, and started working in the entertainment field as a teen magazine cover model, also appearing at times on record album jackets. It might come as a surprise to some that she honed her wholesome sitcom personality only after apprenticing in Roger Corman cheap-jack cult movies - sometimes as a juvenile delinquent.

Known not only for her award-worthy acting on TV comedy, she became an avid game-show panelist and appeared on a slew of TV's more popular programs.

Sleek and striking Abby Dalton became a very familiar perky and sexy presence in 1960s TV households.

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