
Arlene, thank you for an honest look into your life. I may not always agree with you, but you have my respect. ;) from DD season 4 Synopsis: "Arlene Dickinson, "Marketing Maven." We meet Arlene by the pool at sunset at Casa Dickinson, overlooking the ocean in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. "It's a lifetime away from Arlene's frugal days as a single mother," says the narrator. Arlene was born in Germiston, South Africa, near Johannesburg. Her father moved the family to Canada for a better life, but she says they grew up poor. "We had absolutely no money because my parents had given up everything that they possessed in order to emigrate to this country." She takes an emotional trip back to her parents' first home in Calgary, where she lived till she left home at 16. Dickinson says she bought into the 60s notion of husband, house and kids. "I really did believe it was all about getting married and having children, which was really a goal for me. It was all I really ever wanted." She married at 19, had four kids by 27, and then became a single working mom following her divorce. With no formal education and few skills, she took on a series of menial jobs. "There's a lot of despair when you're a single mom and you're trying to take care of your children and take care of yourself, and you don't really know how you're going to do that.... How am I going to be able to manage this?" Her big break came from getting a marketing job with Venture Comunications, later becoming a partner, then <b>...</b>
arlene
dickenson
biography
dragons
den
season
four
special