Dorothy Clements Spence Mitchum (above, with husband Robert), a writer and the widow of the late actor Robert Mitchum, died at Serenity House hospice in Santa Barbara, Calif., on April 12, 2014, just 20 days shy of her 95th birthday.

Born in Camden, Delaware, Spence met Mitchum, two years her elder, when she was 14, after a brief courtship with his handsome younger brother John. Robert Mitchum had already begun his vagabond life, and when he returned to Delaware, he met the dark-haired girl his brother was courting. They were married in the kitchen of a Methodist parson in Dover, Delaware, on March 16, 1940.

Dorothy attended Peirce College in Philadelphia with the aim of becoming a secretary, but she abandoned that ambition to accompany her husband to Hollywood, where he eventually found his fortune as a movie actor. Along the way, the newlyweds worked for astrologer Carroll Righter. Dorothy scribed horoscopes and developed a lifelong interest in astrology.