Dustine Farnum

{{Short description|American film and radio actress}}

File:Dustine Farnum 1944.jpg

Estelle "Dustine" Farnum (May 29, 1925{{cite web |title=California Birth Index, 1905-1995 |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5247/records/1200279?tid=&pid=&queryId=6fabfcff-ff23-403e-9102-5b7c723c2684&_phsrc=cZm685&_phstart=successSource |website=Ancestry.com |access-date=May 12, 2025}} – December 10, 1983{{cite web |title=Dustine Farnum Bitterlin |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5180/records/626683 |website=Ancestry.com |access-date=May 12, 2025}}) was an American film and radio actor.

Farnum was born in Los Angeles in 1925, the daughter of silent film star Dustin Farnum, "the Clark Gable of the silent screen", and actress Winifred Kingston.{{cite news |last1=Johnson |first1=Erskine |title=In Hollywood |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/684188686/ |access-date=May 12, 2025 |agency=The Whittier News |date=July 31, 1944}} Her father died when she was four, and her mother married oil executive Carman Runyon.{{cite news |title=Winifred Kingston, Actress, Was Wife of Dustin Farnum |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/02/05/archives/winifred-kingston-actress-was-wife-of-dustin-farnum.html |access-date=May 12, 2025 |work=The New York Times |agency=United Press International |date=February 5, 1967 |page=88}} For a time, Dustine used her step-father's name as Estelle Runyon. She attended Marlborough School for Girls in Los Angeles, and while there acted three nights a week in radio. In 1942 she starred in A Coat Tail by John Ward from Talent Showcase inc.{{cite news |title=Showcase Players Sign |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/683777016/ |access-date=May 12, 2025 |agency=Los Angeles Evening Citizen News |date=February 14, 1942}}

After graduation she began working in the movies, appearing in the Hopalong Cassidy film Bar 20 with William Boyd. Following this she moved to New York to work as a model with John Powers.

Farnum married schoolteacher Louis Juan Bitterlin on December 26, 1947.{{cite web |title=California, U.S., County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1849-1980 |url=https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61460/records/943161 |website=Ancestry.com |access-date=May 12, 2025}}