Underappreciated actresses
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Harley Jane Kozak was born on 28 January 1957 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress, known for Arachnophobia (1990), Parenthood (1989) and When Harry Met Sally... (1989). She was previously married to Greg Aldisert and Van Saantvord.- Actress
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Anne Marie Cancelmi known professionally as Annie Parisse, is an American actress. She portrayed Alexandra Borgia on the drama series Law & Order. Parisse has also starred as Julia Snyder on the soap opera As the World Turns, for which she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award.- Actress
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Coleen Gray was born in Staplehurst, Nebraska, in 1922. After graduating from high school she studied dramatics at Hamline University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She then decided to see America and traveled to California, stopping off at La Jolla where she worked as a waitress. After several weeks there, she moved to L.A. and enrolled in a drama school. Her performances attracted a talent scout from 20th Century-Fox, with whom she signed a contract after a screen test. Although Fox put her in several good pictures (Kiss of Death (1947), Nightmare Alley (1947), The Razor's Edge (1946) in which she acquitted herself well, many of the roles they gave her were not worthy of her talent and she never became as big a star as many thought she should have. Still, she has an extensive list of credits in films, TV, radio and on the stage.- Actress
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Lovely, auburn-haired Martha Vickers (nee Martha MacVicar) was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 28, 1925, the daughter of James S. and Frances MacVicar. After attending schools in various states - Florida, Texas and California - she and her family settled on the West Coast. A raving beauty, she broke into the entertainment field as a model for still photographer William Mortenson. This attracted the interest of David O. Selznick and she signed a starlet contract with him, but nothing came of it. Universal took over her contract where she was groomed in inauspicious bit parts such as her corpse/victim in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), and in such low-level entries as Captive Wild Woman (1943) and The Mummy's Ghost (1944). In between assignments, Martha earned WWII pin-up exposure in such magazines as "Yank: The Army Weekly."
RKO gave her some higher-level billing chances with Marine Raiders (1944) and The Falcon in Mexico (1944), but it was Warner Bros. that put her officially on the map. The enticing Martha earned celebrity status and a new stage moniker when she generated some real heat as Lauren Bacall's wild, thumb-sucking sister Carmen in the film noir classic The Big Sleep (1946), which also starred Humphrey Bogart, playing the teenage nymphet "bad girl" for all it was worth. This major success quickly led to other "B" roles and not necessarily all "bad girl" parts. Highly appealing as the second femme lead in the pleasant musical The Time, the Place and the Girl (1946), Martha looked radiant but was overlooked for bigger things. She continued on and disrupted the proceedings again in the atmospheric film noir The Man I Love (1946) with Ida Lupino and finally earned leading lady status in That Way with Women (1947) opposite Dane Clark.
Very much a part of the Hollywood dating scene, which included actor James Stewart and director Frederick De Cordova, Martha finally married producer A.C. Lyles in March of 1948, but the marriage was over within a couple of months. Post-war films included Love and Learn (1947), another film noir piece Ruthless (1948), and the melodrama Bad Boy (1949), which was Audie Murphy's first starring role. She ended the decade top-lining the "Poverty-Row" drama Alimony (1949). Surprisingly, Martha's high-profiled second marriage in 1949 to film star Mickey Rooney (she was his third wife) did not advance her career. In fact, Martha was not seen in films at all during this period. Despite the couple having a son, Teddy Rooney, the next year (1950), Rooney had already hit the nadir of his career and had turned excessively to the bottle. Her marriage to Rooney would be short-lived as well.
Martha married a third time in 1954 to Chilean polo player-turned-actor Manuel Rojas, best known for his co-starring role in The Magnificent Matador (1955), and she finally returned to the screen in The Big Bluff (1955) co-starring with John Bromfield. The momentum, however, was gone and the movie did nothing to generate new interest. She did move, however, into TV and performed effectively in a number of dramatic showcases. She and Rojas had two children, Tina and Tessa. In 1960, Martha did her last filming with the western Four Fast Guns (1960) and after guesting on a couple of episodes of the TV series "The Rebel," ended her career. Not much was heard from this sultry beauty until her death from cancer in 1971 at age 46 in Hollywood, California.- Katy Jurado was born María Cristina Estela Jurado García into a wealthy family on January 16, 1924. Her early years were spent amid luxury until her family's lands were confiscated by the federal government for redistribution to the landless peasantry. Despite the loss of property, the matriarch of the family, her grandmother, continued to live by her aristocratic ideals. When movie star Emilio Fernandez discovered Katy at the age of 16 and wanted to cast her in one of his films, Jurado's grandmother objected to her wish to become a movie actress. To get around the ban, Katy slipped from the grasp of her family's control by marrying actor Víctor Velázquez.
Jurado eventually made her debut in No matarás (1943) during the what has been called "The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema". Blessed with stunning beauty and an assertive personality, Jurado specialized in playing determined women in a wide variety of films in Mexico and the United States. Her looks were evocative of the indigenous peoples of Mexico, and she used what she called her "distinguished and sensuous look" to carve a niche for herself in Mexican cinema. Indian features were unusual for a film star in Mexico--despite the success of Fernandez, the fabled "El Indio"--and her ethnic look meant she typically was cast as a dangerous seductress, a popular type in Mexican movies. The Mexican media reported that an American movie director at one of her first Hollywood auditions laughed at her derisively because she spoke English so poorly, and an outraged Jurado promptly stormed out of the audition room, cursing in Spanish. As it turned out, that kind of brazen behavior was exactly the type of personality that the director was looking for.
In addition to acting, Jurado worked as a movie columnist and radio reporter to support her family. She also worked as a bullfight critic, and it was at a bullfight that Jurado was spotted by John Wayne and director Budd Boetticher. Boetticher, who was also a professional bullfighter, cast Jurado in his autobiographical film Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), which he shot in Mexico. She was cast in her part despite having very limited English-language skills and had to speak her lines phonetically. Luis Buñuel cast her in his Mexican melodrama The Brute (1953), and then she made her big breakthrough in American films in the role of Gary Cooper's former mistress, saloon owner Helen Ramirez, in High Noon (1952). The role necessitated her moving to Hollywood. She received two Golden Globe nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for that part, for Most Promising Newcomer and Best Supporting Actress, winning the latter. "She planted the Mexican flag in the U.S. film industry, and made her country proud", said National Actors Association official Mauricio Hernandez. Her "High Noon" performance historically proved to be an important acting watershed for Latino women in American movies. Jurado's portrayal undermined the Hollywood stereotype of the flaming, passionate Mexican "spitfire." Previously, Mexican and Latino women in Hollywood films were characterized by an unbridled sexuality, as exemplified by such diverse actresses as Lupe Velez, Dolores Del Río (who came to loathe Hollywood and returned to Mexico in the 1940s), and Rita Hayworth, nee Margarita Cansino. Although Jurado's character was forced to kow-tow to the stereotype in "High Noon", delivering such lines as, "It takes more than big, broad shoulders to make a man," the actress' great dignity in her role as a moral arbiter among the competing factions of the marshal and his fiancée, the townspeople and the gunmen out to kill the marshal showed her Helen Ramirez to be in control and controlled by nothing, not even her former love for the marshal. Her restrained performance, delivered with a great deal of conviction, emphasized the shortcomings of the rest of the other characters. Her moral integrity is the reason she, like the marshal, must abandon the town.
With her superb performance, Jurado proved that Latino women could be more than just sexpots in the American cinema. Importantly, working against the tropes of a racist cinema, she used her talent to introduce into the American cinema the model of the un-stereotyped Mexican woman who is identifiably Mexican. One of the best examples of this can be seen at the end of the middle of her career, when Jurado played sheriff Slim Pickens' wife and partner in Sam Peckinpah's elegiac Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Determined and tough as nails, Jurado's character was clearly her screen husband's equal, and she had a very moving scene with Pickens as his character faced death. Jurado was blessed with extraordinary eyes, which were both beautiful and expressive, their beauty and strength never fading with age. Two years after "High Noon", Jurado received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Spencer Tracy's Indian wife in Edward Dmytryk's Broken Lance (1954), making her the first Mexican actress thus honored.
She refused to sign a contract with a major Hollywood studio in order to be able to return to Mexico between her American roles to star in Mexican films. She +remained in Los Angeles for 10 years, marrying Ernest Borgnine, her co-star in The Badlanders (1958), in 1959. During their tempestuous relationship, Jurado and Borgnine separated and reconciled before finally separating for good in 1961. The tabloids reported that Borgnine had abused her, and their separation proved rocky as well, as they fought over alimony. Their divorce became final in 1964. Borgnine summed up his ex-wife as "beautiful, but a tiger", a bon mot that described her on-screen persona as well (she had two children with former husband Victor Velasquez, a daughter and a son, who tragically was killed in an automobile accident in 1981).
Jurado played the wife of Marlon Brando's nemesis Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Brando's sole directorial effort. In her role she also was the mother of a young woman who was Brando's love interest, thus marking a career transition point as she assumed the role of a mature woman. As Jurado aged, she appeared in fewer films, but notable among them included Arrowhead (1953) with Charlton Heston, Trapeze (1956) in support of Burt Lancaster and Man from Del Rio (1956) with her fellow Mexican national Anthony Quinn who, unlike Jurado, had become an American citizen. She also appeared with Quinn in _Barabbas (1962)_and The Children of Sanchez (1978).
She appeared on the Western-themed American TV shows Death Valley Days (1952), The Rifleman (1958), The Westerner (1960) and The Virginian (1962). Her career in the US began to wind down, and she was reduced to appearing in "B" pictures like Smoky (1966) with Fess Parker and the Elvis Presley movie Stay Away, Joe (1968). She attempted to commit suicide in 1968, and then moved back home to Mexico permanently, though she continued to appear in American films as a character actress. Her last American film appearance was in Stephen Frears' The Hi-Lo Country (1998), capping a half-century-long American movie career that continued due to her talent and remarkable presence, long after her extraordinary good looks had faded.
Aside from acting in films in the US and Europe, she continued to act in Mexican films. Her most memorable role in Mexican movies was in Nosotros los pobres (1948) (aka "We the Poor") opposite superstar Pedro Infante. Though in the latter part of her career she appeared occasionally in American films shot in Mexico (including an appearance with her former mentor, Emilio Fernandez, in "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" and John Huston's Under the Volcano (1984)), she appeared mostly in Mexican movies in the last decades of her career, becoming a prominent and highly respected character actress. She played the leader of a religious cult in the Bunuel-like satire Divine (1998). Jurado won three Ariel awards, the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar, a Best Supporting Actress award in 1954 for Bunuel's The Brute (1953) a Best Actress Award in 1974 for Fe, esperanza y caridad (1974) and a Best Supporting Actress award in 1999 for "El evangelio de las Maravillas". She also was awarded a Special Golden Ariel for Lifetime Achievment in 1997. In the north, she was honored with a Golden Boot Award by the Motion Picture & Television Fund in 1992 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Jurado was an avid promoter of her home state of Morelos as a location for filmmakers.
Towards the end of her life, she suffered from heart and lung ailments. Katy Jurado died on July 5, 2002, at the age of 78 at her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She was survived by her daughter. - Ayda Field was born Ayda Sabahat Evecan on May 17, 1979, in Los Angeles County, California, USA to a Turkish father and an American mother. She is an actress, known for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006), Back to You (2007) and Loose Women (1999). She is fluent in Turkish in addition to her native English. She has been married to British singer Robbie Williams since August 7, 2010. They have four children
- Tricia O'Neil was born on 11 March 1945 in Shreveport, Louisiana, USA. She is an actress, known for Titanic (1997), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993).
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Elizabeth Ann Perkins was born on November 18, 1960, in the borough of Queens, New York, and was raised in Vermont. Her mother, Jo Williams, was a concert pianist and drug treatment counselor, and her father, James Perkins, was a businessman, farmer, and writer. She is of Greek and English descent. Perkins studied acting at Chicago's Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University for three years, then launched her professional career with a co-starring gig in the touring company of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986). Seasoned, she returned to New York in the spring of 1984 to make her Broadway debut as a replacement in the Simon play. As a stage actress, she has trod the boards with Playwrights Horizon, the Ensemble Studio, The New York Shakespeare Festival, and, back in Chicago, with the Steppenwolf Theater. Elizabeth Perkins was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis' Screen World, and has since landed numerous film roles. Perkins made her film debut in 1986 in Edward Zwick's About Last Night... with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore and Jim Belushi, and had a career breakthrough co-starring with Tom Hanks in Big. She received critical acclaim for her performance in Barry Levinson's Avalon,[9] and was a standout opposite William Hurt in The Doctor (1991), receiving critical acclaim for her performance as a terminal cancer patient.[5] .[10] She subsequently starred in the Alan Rudolph film Love at Large and Sweethearts Dance with Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels. Since, she has appeared in Miracle on 34th Street with Sir Richard Attenborough, 28 Days opposite Sandra Bullock, the suspense thriller, The Ring Two, opposite Naomi Watts, Indian Summer with Diane Lane and Bill Paxton, Moonlight and Valentino with Gwyneth Paltrow, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathleen Turner and Jon Bon Jovi, the Antonio Banderas directed Crazy in Alabama opposite Melanie Griffith, Jiminy Glick in LaLaWood with Martin Short, Wilma Flintstone opposite John Goodman in the 1994 live-action comedy The Flintstones, The Thing About My Folks with Paul Reiser and Peter Falk, He Said, She Said with Kevin Bacon and Sharon Stone and Must Love Dogs with John Cusack, Diane Lane, Christopher Plummer, Dermot Mulroney and Stockard Channing. From 2005 to 2009, Perkins played Celia Hodes, an alcoholic and image-obsessed parent-teacher association (PTA) mother, alongside Mary-Louise Parker, Kevin Nealon and Justin Kirk on the Showtime series Weeds. Perkins received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Series, Miniseries or Made for TV Motion Picture (in 2006 and 2007).[5] and was also nominated three times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Weeds.[5] At a screening of Weeds at the Museum of TV and Radio on October 25, 2006, Perkins said that she considers Celia Hodes her favorite role in her career.[5] On May 6, 2010, she announced that the fifth season of Weeds was her last despite the cliffhanger her character had in the season finale.[11] Perkins appeared in the television projects My Sisters Keeper with Kathy Bates, If These Walls Could Talk with Vanessa Redgrave and Paul Giamatti and Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women directed by Peter Bogdonavich. Perkins starred in the ABC comedy series How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life).[12] with Brad Garrett, played Birdie in the Netflix original series GLOW with Alison Brie, starred as Marilyn Lovell in HBO's epic From The Earth to the Moon, played opposite Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson in HBO's Sharp Objects directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, starred with Octavia Spencer, Aaron Paul and Lizzie Caplan in AppleTV's Truth Be Told, was featured on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm and is currently starring in Season 2 of the Fox comedy The Moodys opposite Denis Leary and Jay Baruchel. She plays the role of Mandy Moores mother on the hit series This Is Us. (Perkins also had a role in the 2003 film Finding Nemo, voicing Coral, the wife of Marlin and mother of Nemo, and who was killed and eaten by the barracuda in the beginning of the film.)- Actress
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Maria del Mar was born in 1964 in Madrid, Spain. She is known for Blue Murder (2001), A Touch of Grey (2009) and 24 (2001).- Actress
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Jennifer Dale was born on 16 January 1956 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Coroner (2019), SurrealEstate (2021) and What Would Sal Do? (2017). She was previously married to Robert Lantos.- Actress
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Robyn Elaine Lively Johnson is an American actress. She is known for her role in the film Teen Witch (1989) and for her roles in the TV shows Doogie Howser, M.D.; Twin Peaks; Savannah; and Saving Grace. Robyn Lively was born into a family of actors in Powder Springs, Georgia; her mother, adoptive father, and all four siblings are (or have been) in the entertainment industry. She is the daughter of talent manager Elaine Lively and her first husband Ronald Otis (Ronnie) Lively. Her siblings are sister Lori and brother Jason, and her half-siblings are Eric and Blake.- Actress
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Tamlyn Tomita was born on 27 January 1966 in Okinawa, Japan. She is an actress and writer, known for The Day After Tomorrow (2004), The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Eye (2008). She is married to Daniel Blinkoff.- Actress
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As she inherited her love for the arts by her father, well-known playwright, actor, director and novelist Mario Peña, it is not hard to understand that actress Elizabeth Pena already had designs to become an actress by the time she was eight years old.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959, the petite (5' 2") actress was raised in New York City. Elizabeth's (and sister Tania's) parents, Cuban immigrants Mario and Estella Margarita Peña, would achieve a strong Latino reputation as the founders of the off-Broadway Latin-American Theatre Ensemble. They also encouraged Elizabeth's talent. In 1975, the young teenager became a founding member of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, and two years later graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts, now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.
Elizabeth found occasional work in repertory theater and in television commercials. Making her film debut in the independent Spanish-speaking feature El Super (1979), about Cuban refugees, she continued with playing a long line of independent and rebellious characters, which showed plenty of attitude and independence. Playing offbeat roles -- from a knife-threatening waitress to a disco queen -- she appeared in such early films as They All Laughed (1981) and Crossover Dreams (1985). Elizabeth's big break came in the form a support role in the hugely popular and entertaining comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), co-starring Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss and Nick Nolte, in which she stole several scenes as the sultry, smoky-voiced, politically-minded maid Carmen.
Two consecutive short-lived television series came about around this time. Her first, the ensemble comedy Tough Cookies (1986), had her playing a police officer, and the second was the title housekeeper role in the sitcom I Married Dora (1987). High in demand now, Elizabeth continued to spice up both the big and small screen in such roles as Ritchie Valens' stepsister-in-law in the well-received biopic La Bamba (1987); a drug enforcement agent in the miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990); PTSD-suffering Tim Robbins' live-in girlfriend in the complex drama Jacob's Ladder (1990); and a dedicated legal secretary on the corporate drama series Shannon's Deal (1990) starring Jamey Sheridan.
Honors also came Elizabeth's way when she received the Independent Spirit and Bravo awards for the film Lone Star (1996), and four ALMA Awards for her performances in the television movie Contagious (1997), the films Tortilla Soup (2001) and Rush Hour (1998), and her regular role on the Latino drama series Resurrection Blvd. (2000).
Into the millennium, Elizabeth found steady employment on television with guest roles on Boston Public (2000), CSI: Miami (2002), Without a Trace (2002), Numb3rs (2005), Ghost Whisperer (2005), Charlie's Angels (2011), Prime Suspect (2011), Common Law (2012), and Modern Family (2009). One of her last roles was on the television series Matador (2014). She also found herself further down the credits in films such as On the Borderline (2001), Transamerica (2005), The Lost City (2005), Mother and Child (2009), The Perfect Family (2011), Plush (2013), and Grandma (2015). Three other films -- Girl on the Edge (2015), Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015), and The Song of Sway Lake (2018) -- were released posthumously. She also provided a voice in the popular Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles (2004).
A chronic alcohol problem severely hampered Elizabeth's life and she died suddenly from cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles, California on October 14, 2014, at age 55. She was survived by her second husband (from 1994), Hans Rolla, and their two children, son Kælan and daughter Fiona.- The actress was born Marilyn Watts in Santa Monica, California, 17 years before she put her foot on the bottom step of the show biz ladder, dancing in the back row of the chorus in "Earl Carroll's Revue" at the famed showman's theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling for photographers led to wider exposure and ultimately to TV roles and bit parts in low-budget movies. As a Universal-International contract player, she was in most every type of B picture that the studio made. She gave up acting in the early '60s to concentrate on marriage and motherhood during 17 tumultuous years as the wife of actor Richard Long. Since his 1974 death, she's played supporting parts in her friend Clint Eastwood's movies, just as he played a supporting role in one of hers (Tarantula (1955)).
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Attractive, blond, dimple-cheeked artist's daughter Irene Hervey was first tutored in acting by the noted English stage thespian Emma Dunn. She appeared in junior theatrical productions during her time at Venice High School in Los Angeles. Irene completed her training at the M-G-M School of Acting before being signed as a contract player in 1933. Often on loan to other studios, she was assigned bit parts until meatier co-starring roles came along in The Girl Said No (1937) and Say It in French (1938). While at M-G-M, Irene was briefly engaged to Robert Taylor, an affair which was stymied by Louis B. Mayer who saw it as detrimental to Taylor's career.
After briefly free-lancing, Irene signed with Universal (joining her then-husband, actor/singer Allan Jones) in 1938 and remained with that studio until 1943. Her best-known film was the classic James Stewart-Marlene Dietrich western Destry Rides Again (1939) in 1939. In the 1940s, Irene became a leading lady of B-movies. In the crime melodramas San Francisco Docks (1940) and Frisco Lil (1942) she was, respectively, a barmaid and a law student, trying to clear her nearest and dearest of murders they had not committed. In the adventure yarn Bombay Clipper (1941) she was William Gargan's obligatory girlfriend - more decorative than active; and in the potboiler, Night Monster (1942), a Dr. Phibes-like tale of revenge and murder, she played second-fiddle to those great characters, Lionel Atwill and Bela Lugosi.
A charming, smart and likeable actress who some reviewers compared to Myrna Loy, Irene put her family above her career and that was perhaps the reason she never made the breakthrough to A-grade pictures. In 1943, she was injured in a car accident and sidelined for five years. When she returned to the screen, it was as a character actress in the fantasy Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948), as the titular character's sophisticated wife. From the 1950s, Irene concentrated on television work with a recurring role as Aunt Meg in the series Honey West (1965) (with Anne Francis). There were also numerous guest-starring spots in top-rating shows like Peter Gunn (1958), Perry Mason (1957), Ironside (1967) and The Twilight Zone (1959). She was nominated for an Emmy Award for a performance on My Three Sons (1960) in 1969. Her final motion picture role was as radio station owner Madge Brenner in Play Misty for Me (1971).
After her retirement from acting, Irene worked as a travel agent in Sherman Oaks, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.- Actress
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Lena Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. In her biography she stated that, on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay the hospital costs. Her parents divorced while she was still a toddler. Her mother left later in order to find work as an actress and Lena was left in the care of her grandparents. When she was seven, her mother returned and the two traveled around the state which meant that Lena was enrolled in numerous schools. For a time she also attended schools in Florida, Georgia and Ohio. Later she returned to Brooklyn.
Lena quit school when she was 14 and got her first stage job at 16 dancing and later singing at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem, a renowned theater in which black performers played before white audiences immortalized in The Cotton Club (1984)). She was in good hands at the club, especially when people such as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington took her under their wings and helped her over the rough spots. Before long, her talent resulted in her playing before packed houses.
If Lena had never made a movie, her music career would have been enough to have ensured her legendary status in the entertainment industry, but films were icing on the cake. After she made an appearance on Broadway, Hollywood came calling. At 21 years of age, Lena made her first film, The Duke Is Tops (1938). It would be four more years before she appeared in another, Panama Hattie (1942), playing a singer in a nightclub. By now Lena had signed with MGM but, unfortunately for her, the pictures were shot so that her scenes could be cut out when they were shown in the South since most theaters in the South refused to show films that portrayed blacks in anything other than subservient roles to whites. Most movie studios did not want to take a chance on losing that particular source of revenue. Lena did not want to appear in those kinds of stereotyped roles and who could blame her?
In 1943, MGM loaned Lena to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black musical Stormy Weather (1943), which did extremely well at the box office. Her rendition of the title song became a major hit on the musical charts. In 1943, she appeared in Cabin in the Sky (1943), regarded by many as one of the finest performances of her career. She played Georgia Brown opposite Ethel Waters and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson in the all black production. Rumors were rampant that she and Waters just did not get along well, although there was never any mention of the source of the alleged friction. However, that was not the only feud on that picture. Other cast members sniped at one another and it was a wonder the film was made at all. Regardless of the hostilities, the movie was released to very good reviews from the ever tough critics. It went a long way in showing the depth of the talent that existed among black performers in Hollywood, especially Lena.
Lena's musical career flourished, but her movie career stagnated. Minor roles in films such as Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), Words and Music (1948) and Mantan Messes Up (1946) did little to advance her film career, due mainly to the ingrained racist attitudes of the time. Even at the height of Lena's musical career, she was often denied rooms at the very hotels in which she performed because they would not let blacks stay there. After Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), Lena left films to concentrate on music and the stage. She returned in 1969 as Claire Quintana in Death of a Gunfighter (1969). Nine years later, she returned to the screen again in the all black musical The Wiz (1978) where she played Glinda the Good Witch. Although that was her last big-screen appearance, she stayed busy in television appearing in A Century of Women (1994) and That's Entertainment! III (1994).
Had it not been for the prevailing racial attitudes during the time when Lena was just starting her career, it's fair to say that it would have been much bigger and come much sooner. Even taking those factors into account, Lena Horne is still one of the most respected, talented and beautiful performers of all time.- Actress
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Kim Miyori was born on 4 January 1951 in Santa Barbara, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Punisher (1989), The Grudge 2 (2006) and Metro (1997). She was previously married to Rickey Momii.- Rena was born in Arcadia, California, to Susan (Franzblau), a psychology professor, and Martin Sofer, who was a Conservative Jewish Rabbi. She moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when her parents divorced. She was discovered at age 15 by a New York talent agent and started modeling before turning to acting. She appeared on Another World (1964) for a short time and then went to Loving (1983), where she played Rockie McKenzie for 3 years. She made her first mark on television when she joined fellow ABC-soap General Hospital (1963) as savvy record promoter Lois Cerullo. Not only did her portrayal win her a vast amount of fans, she also won a 'Best Supporting Actress' Daytime Emmy and network executives considered creating a spin-off series based on Lois and her on-screen husband Ned. It was on General Hospital she met Wally Kurth, her on-screen spouse who became her real-life husband and father to her daughter Rosabel Rosalind Kurth. In the mid-'90s, Sofer made the leap to primetime, guest starring in a number of series before appropriately landing a regular part on primetime soap Melrose Place (1992) which turned to be the series' final season. Starring and recurring roles on the sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997) and the dramedy Ed (2000) widened her exposure. A string of flop series followed (Oh, Grow Up (1999); The Chronicle (2001); Coupling (2003) and Blind Justice (2005), but Sofer proved she had staying power and scored roles on the big screen in movies with Ben Stiller (Keeping the Faith (2000)) and Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000). After taking a brief hiatus to give birth to a daughter with her second husband, TV director Sanford Bookstaver, she returned to the small screen in 2006 with recurring roles in two hit shows 24 (2001) and Heroes (2006), as the long-suffering wife to two shady characters, a power broker and an aspiring politician, respectively. In 2010, she tackled a season-long story arc as Margaret Allison Hart, an attorney with a hidden agenda on NCIS (2003). In 2013 she returned to her daytime roots, taking on the role of enigmatic jewelry designer Quinn Fuller on The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) receiving rave reviews.
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This tall (5'10"), pretty, willowy brunette (but frequently blonde) was born on April 28, 1948, in New York City, as one of four children. Raised in Passaic, New Jersey, Marcia grew into a striking young teen and worked for a time as a model in a local children's department store. A talented singer, she initially attempted a singing career and was picked up as a recording artist for Uni Records in 1967. Her debut single, "The Flower Children", was a top 40 hit in many West Coast U.S. markets,
Trekking back to New York City equipped only with her modeling and singing credentials, Marcia found herself performing in an off-Broadway show at the ripe old age of 15, replacing 17-year-old Liza Minnelli in the musical "Best Foot Forward." Inspired, Marcia ventured ahead with a number of stage roles, then broke into television, appearing in several episodes as a teen on the popular The Patty Duke Show (1963). Following some sporadic work on such shows as "Ironside" and "The Paul Lynde Show," Marcia scored her first semi-regular role as an army nurse on the very first season of M*A*S*H (1972).
Making her film debut in the featured role of a reporter in the obscure, semi-counterculture film Changes (1969), Marcia focused on TV work into the 1970's with parts in such shows as "Police Story," "Marcus Welby," "City of Angels," "The Love Boat," "Fantasy Island" and the TV-movies Journey from Darkness (1975) and Brenda Starr (1976). Her huge, breakout role, and the one for which she will best be remembered, was as Gabe Kaplan's wife on the popular sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975) for four seasons. Despite the steady work, Marcia remained disillusioned at playing the relatively overlooked role of Julie Kotter. The primary focus landed squarely on Brooklyn schoolteacher Kotter (the show was based on Kaplan's real-life experiences as a teacher) and his interaction with student "Sweathogs" Robert Hegyes, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Ron Palillo and pre-megastar John Travolta. Stuck with what many deemed a reactive character, she gamely stayed with the show, however, throughout its run.
While "Kotter" would remain her only hit series, she immediately went into another, albeit short-lived, series playing an office worker to sexist sportswriter Ted Bessell in the comedy Good Time Harry (1980). In a second attempt, she co-starred in the crime series Booker (1989) as boss to Dennis Booker, the titular insurance investigator played by handsome, young Richard Grieco, a spin-off character from the series 21 Jump Street (1987).
In between, she remained a steady focus as a guest on such shows as "The Rockford Files," "Magnum, P.I.," "E/R" and "I Married Dora," she appeared in the occasional film -- the offbeat romantic comedy Soup for One (1982) co-starring Saul Rubinek and featured in the Christopher Reeve adventure The Aviator (1985). she regained some popularity as the wholesome wife of nerdy Rick Moranis in the surprise Walt Disney hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989). She reprised that role in the equally popular sequel Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992) and played the same kind of wife in the family fantasy comedy And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird (1991).
Marcia remained true blue to the small screen with single performances on "Civil Wars," "Sweet Justice," "Charlie Grace," "Murder, She Wrote," "Highlander," "L.A. Heat," "Tracy Takes On..." and "Baywatch." Returning to films with the crime comedy Another Stakeout (1993), the family sci-fi comedy Earth Minus Zero (1996), in 1998, Marcia returned to her singing talents and performed with "Beauty and the Beast" star Susan Egan in "Hello Again," which was a revamped version of the Max Ophüls classic French film La Ronde (1950). Here she played against type as a prostitute. Marcia attempted two other short-lived series with the comedy Noah Knows Best (2000) and action adventure Tremors (2003) and phased away from the camera not long after a recurring role as a sergeant in the police series Third Watch (1999).
Over the years Marcia carved out a niche for herself not only as a fine actress but also as a social and labor activist, and lent her skills and talents to many progressive causes. Diagnosed with breast and bone cancer in 2007, she published Life with a Side Order of Cancer, a memoir in which she detailed her life, career and challenging illness the following year. Marcia died of complications on October 24, 2014, in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles. She was 66 and survived by her sister Julie Strassman-Cohn, a TV story editor, brother Steve Strassman and daughter Elizabeth Collector, from a brief 1980's marriage to writer/director Robert Collector.- Gretchen Corbett was born on 13 August 1945 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She is an actress, known for The Rockford Files (1974), Pig (2021) and Otherworld (1985).
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Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Erica Cerra discovered her love of acting by her 8th birthday. After appearing in numerous commercials Erica decided to take a break from acting. Returning to the business at 22, she decided to dedicate herself whole-heartedly to living as a professional actor. She has since committed herself to extensive study with the likes of Matthew Harrison and top acting coaches Larry Moss and Gina Chiarelli.
Erica has worked alongside the likes of Lolita Davidovich, Luis Guzman, and Hank Azaria. Her most recent credits include: New Line Cinema's Blade III; Showtime's The L Word; Adam Druxman's The Condemned; and MGM's Dead Like Me. In addition to appearances on Jake 2.0, The Collector, Dead Zone and Long Weekend.- Actress
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Linda Kelsey was born on 28 July 1946 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She is an actress, known for Lou Grant (1977), A Family Torn Apart (1993) and Day by Day (1988). She has been married to Glenn Nellist Strand since 20 May 1979. They have two children. She was previously married to Bill Grivna.- Robin Curtis was born on 15 June 1956 in New York Mills, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).
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Melanie Chartoff began her career on Broadway in "Scapino" and "Via Galactica," and Off-Broadway in "the Proposition" (an entirely improvised musical revue with Jane Curtin, Fred Grande, and Josh Mostel), played Jennifer in a revival of "Do I Hear a Waltz;" and meanwhile performed a stand-up and comedy song act at the Improv Clubs in NY, and later in LA.
She came to prominence as cast and contributor on "Fridays," with Larry David and Michael Richards; co-starred with George Segal on "Take Five," recurred opposite Jonathan Banks on "Wiseguy," recurred as Peter Scolari, Tom Poston, and Bob Newhart's shrink on "Newhart;" recurred as the mom on "Weird Science," played the principal from hell, Grace Musso, on "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," recurred as Jason Alexander's girlfriend on "Seinfeld," and appeared in the final episode; she played Didi Pickles and Minka on Nickelodeon's long running Emmy-winning "Rugrats" and "All Grown Up," its films and video games and in its action figures; she played Aunt Nora in the animated "Jumanji," and played Sunshine on "OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes" on the Cartoon Network.
Melanie played the mature Mary Pickford at the time when she was president of United Artists in a new play called "The Counsel, the Tramp and American's Sweetheart" at Theatre 40, and played Ruth Bader Ginsberg in Rupert Holmes' play "All Things Equal". She appears in several roles in "The Pack Plays" on the Actors Fund website.
Her first book, "Odd Woman Out: Exposure in Essays and Stories," about the risks of becoming an actor before becoming a real human, is rated five stars on Barnes and Noble, Amazon and many other sites. Her narration of the audio book is also rated five stars.
She's been published in McSweeney's, Medium, Entropy, Crows Feet, The Jewish Journal, Funny Times, Five on the Fifth, Purple Clover, Glint, Entropy, Verdad, Bluestem, Evening Street Press, Mused, Jewlarious, Defenestration, Better after 50, Living the Second Act, Avenue, Goats Milk Magazine, Borrowed Solace, Avalon Literary Review, Eat Darling Eat, The Literate Ape, Lowestoft Chronicle, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Wry Times, and five editions of Chicken Soup for the Soul (Simon and Schuster). She lives with her husband in Los Angeles and coaches performers and non-performers, introverts and extroverts, in being more charismatic in their public and private encounters, directing voice-over reels, speeches, and recording first date videos.- Producer
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During the 1950s and 1960s, she made dozens of guest appearances on such television programs as The Twilight Zone (1959), Dr. Kildare (1961), The Felony Squad (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), Daniel Boone (1964), and Mannix (1967). She had a short role as Doris Schuster on Peyton Place (1964). She also appeared on daytime's Bright Promise (1969) as Ann Boyd Jones (1970-1972). Kobe began to work behind the camera as supervising producer and associate producer on such daytime programs as The Edge of Night (1956) and Return to Peyton Place (1972). In 1982 she became executive producer of Texas (1980) during its final few months. She then became executive producer of Guiding Light (1952) where she stayed from 1982 to 1987.- Actress
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This gorgeous green-eyed blonde was born in Canada to British parents and spent her early childhood attending schools in Canada, England, Boston and Los Angeles (where her father worked as a stage carpenter and set designer). She studied ballet for four years and tap dancing for another at the Maurice Kussell Studio, took singing lessons and learned acting under the tutelage of French-Canadian thespian Joseph De Grasse. She performed in school plays during holidays and made her motion picture debut at the age of ten in A Lady of Quality (1924). At thirteen, Rosina appeared in Cecil B. DeMille's The Angel of Broadway (1927) in which she was also used as a hand double for the star Leatrice Joy. For the next seven years she commuted between vaudeville and film work and earned extra dollars as a Hollywood fashion model. She doubled for Sally Eilers (whom she resembled in looks) in both Dance Team (1932) and Disorderly Conduct (1932) but her roles had up to this point amounted to little more than bit parts and walk-ons. A couple of leads eventually came her way, both in second feature mysteries: Welcome Home (1935), opposite James Dunn and Charlie Chan's Secret (1935), with Warner Oland as the screen's first incarnation of the famous detective. Rosina also had two decent production numbers in MGM's marathon biopic The Great Ziegfeld (1936) (her character, Sally Manners, was based on the stage star Marilyn Miller), but those scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Her career was somewhat revived after she was signed by Hal Roach and found a little niche as the school teacher in the "Our Gang" comedy shorts. She also starred several times in slapstick farce as the wife of Charley Chase and with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Way Out West (1937) (allegedly the duo's personal favorite).
Rosina left the acting profession upon her marriage to the Brooklyn lawyer Juvenal Marchisio, a union which produced three children. Marchisio died in 1973 and Rosina didn't remarry until 1987. Her second husband was actor, academic and Laurel & Hardy biographer John McCabe.