Marie Dixon

Marie Dixon McKay (1965-2012) was born to Walter Dixon, and his wife, Emily, in 1965. She was the ex-wife of James McKay, the late mother of Chloe Dixon, the mother-in-law of Jack Flynn and late grandmother to Emma Flynn.

Marie was also a prominent member of the Dixon family. When ranking her among other members of the Dixon family, she is the fourth heiress ever to have been born in the family. This means she was the second-to-last heiress before her untimely death in the fall of 2012.

Early life
Marie was born in New York, New York. Her life growing up was complicated due to a neurotic mother and a workaholic father, who both expected Marie to not only live in their world of high society, but to also follow the rules. Marie was a fun-loving, artistic woman, but was also flighty and inconsistent.

Marie grew up with a very privileged education, attending the best schools in the area. At 14, her parents, Walter and Emily, enrolled her at Bridgeton Preparatory School, graduating from there in the summer of 1983. Shortly after graduating, her parents urged her to continue her good education; urging her to attend Juilliard in New York City. However, Marie wanted to attend a fashion school and instead applied to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. When her parents heard about this, they were extremely disappointed with Marie and reprimanded her for attending fashion school; but Marie went ahead with her decision and attended anyway.

Although Marie seemed to fit in at first, she became unpopular due to her prestigious upbringing, and many people avoided her for this reason. Fortunately, Marie found comfort when she met James McKay, a slightly older student who was giving While there, she met James McKay that year. Within a few months, they began dating and once they both graduated from the famous liberal arts school, they were married by the Justice of the Peace in July of 1986. Over the next few years, Marie and James established a life for themselves in Rochester, New York, where they gave birth to a daughter they named Chloe in 1995.

A couple years after Chloe was born though, Marie developed seasonal depression where she would be happy during the spring and summer months but miserable during the fall and winter months. At some point, Marie couldn't take it anymore and left James in the spring of 1998, barely two months after Chloe had turned three, and moved out to Venice Beach, California.

Haunted
Even though Marie let her ex-husband keep Chloe with him in New York, she did manage to convince her to stay with her for a little bit. When Chloe turned fourteen, Marie asked her ex-husband if she could have Chloe attend public high school in California. Although James was reluctant to do this at first, he eventually agreed, saying that if anything happens to her mother, she has to move to New York straight away.

In September of 2012, Marie overslept and almost made Chloe late for school. After Marie's death, her ex-husband intervened and suggested that Chloe live with her grandparents at least until she turned eighteen and after that, she was free to live wherever she wanted. Circumstances changed for Chloe, however, when Chloe's grandparents were brutally murdered by Marjorie Dixon. This prompted James McKay to move into Dixon Mansion with Chloe until she decided to move into an apartment in Greenwich Village with Jack Flynn.

Skills and Abilities

 * Drawing: Marie displayed a tremendous talent for drawing throughout her life. She was so good that many of her family's friends wondered why she never took up an occupation as a artist, and considered it a waste of her good talents to go into the fashion industry where Marie became highly unpopular. Besides this, Marie still kept up with drawing even until the day she was killed in the car accident that took her life.
 * Unbreakable spirit: Like her daughter, Marie also shared an unbreakable spirit. When Marjorie's Chrysler collided with her Lexus on the day she died, she vowed to seek revenge on her if Marjorie ever harmed her parents or her daughter.

Possessions

 * Fashion sketchbook: Marie's sketchbook was a large, hard-bound, journal with over 150 sheets of unlined paper. The journal had early concept sketches and final drafts for all of Marie's fashion lines she heralded from the time she opened her studio to the day she died.
 * Shoe collection: Marie owned over sixty pairs of shoes ranging from designer heels to wedged sandals. Although Chloe was bequeathed to have all of these shoes in her mother's will, she only grabbed half of the shoes and made sure to pick out what she wanted - which were a few pairs of heels, flats, sneakers, some wedge sandals, and a few pairs of boots. The rest of the shoes Chloe didn't want, she gave to a brand-name clothing store that specialized in gently-used clothing.
 * Parisian scarves: Marie owned up to twenty scarves that had been carried in her suitcase when she came home from her honeymoon in Paris, France. These were silken scarves adorned with patterns, flowers, or  blends of solid colors. Chloe still keeps these scarves as a memento to hold onto the mother that was ripped away from her.
 * Antique jewelry: This was also something Marie bequeathed to Chloe to in her will. What Chloe did with the jewelry is unknown as she only took some of it to New York with her and left the rest of it behind in California.

Relationships
Marie Dixon was the daughter of Emily Dixon and Walter Dixon, the late mother of Chloe Dixon, the ex-wife of James McKay, the mother-in-law of Jack Flynn, and grandmother of Emma Flynn.

Appearances

 * Haunted (1st appearance)
 * Angel Wings (Appears as a ghost or a spirit)

Mentioned in

 * Golden Girl 

Etymology

 * Marie: is a French cognate of Mary, which is derived from the Hebrew Miryām, a name of debated meaning. Many believe it to mean "sea of bitterness" or "sea of sorrow." However, some sources cite the alternative definitions of "rebellion," "wished-for child," and "mistress or lady of the sea."
 * Olivia: derives from the Latin word meaning "olive". It was famously used by William Shakespeare for a character in his comedy Twelfth Night in 1602.
 * Dixon: is a Northern English surname. It is a patronymic from the name Dick, which is a pet form of the name Richard.

Trivia

 * Marie was named after the famous last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.
 * In the mid 1980s, Marie got a pixie cut after seeing the American singer Madonna with one on her third studio album, True Blue.
 * She was right handed like her daughter, Chloe.
 * Her favorite band in high school was the Rolling Stones. Another favorite of hers was Bon Jovi.
 * Her favorite flowers were yellow roses.
 * Her favorite color was periwinkle, which is a lighter shade of blue.
 * She went through a Dirty Dancing phase.
 * She was into wearing colored heels along with her school uniform when she attended Bridgeton Preparatory School in the 1980s. At first, the school administration demanded she wear proper footwear, but gave up when Marie kept wearing them in the warmer months.
 * She practically fainted at the sight of blood. This was true whenever Chloe got hurt as a child, so she made her ex-husband, James, take care of any injury and made him clean up the mess.
 * Marie was the one who suggested Chloe take swimming lessons at Callipatria High School when she came to live with her for two years. This was to replace her ballet lessons, which Marie often complained was too expensive.
 * Out of all the characters in the series, Marie owns the most possessions: over sixty pairs of shoes, eighteen Parisian scarves, and three jewelry boxes full of antique jewelry. All of these were bequeathed to Chloe in her will after she died.
 * She didn't like cherry flavored things.

