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- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Alan Ritchson has carved a space for himself on both the large and small screens since he made the trek from a small town in Florida to Los Angeles.
Alan Michael Ritchson was born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Vickie (Harrell), a high school teacher, and David Ritchson, a U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sergeant. He is of Czech, English, and German descent. Frequently relocating as the middle son of a military family, Alan learned to adapt and entertain in order to build friendships in new and unfamiliar environments. Certainly this has been a key ingredient in his success so far in the industry.
Alan's early credits include portraying Aquaman in the long running series Smallville. This marked the first portrayal of the superhero in an officially licensed live-action production.
Ritchson has also taken on grittier leading man roles in the independent film market with the modern-day western "Rex" and the dramatic love story of "Steam" alongside Ally Sheedy.
In contrast, he also made quite a comedic impression with his love-to-hate-him character of Thad Castle on the football comedy Blue Mountain State. He parlayed his comedic skills to work with Rebel Wilson in her CBS pilot Super Fun Night.
In addition to his acting repertoire, Alan also writes, produces and is a singer/songwriter.
Most recently Alan can be seen as the District 1 victor, Gloss, in Catching Fire; the second installment of the hugely successful Hunger Games franchise. He also portrayed the cool-but-crude Raphael in the Michael Bay produced reboot of TMNT.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Leslie Louise Bibb was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, on November 17, 1973, and raised in Nelson County, Virginia. Later she and her mother, along with her three older sisters, moved to Richmond, where Leslie attended an all-girls Catholic high school, St. Gertrude.
In 1990 The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986) and the Elite Agency held a nationwide modeling search; Leslie's mother took photos of her then 16-year-old daughter and sent them in. Although Leslie wasn't impressed with the photos, the judges--John Casablancas, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Iman--were, and they picked her as the winner.
After finishing her junior year, Leslie flew to New York City and signed a contract with Elite. She modeled over the summer, and went on a trip to Japan. She returned home for her senior year and graduated in 1992, then decided to forgo a full-time modeling career to attend the University of Virginia. After a single semester, however, she dropped out and moved to New York City. She attended the William Esper acting studio for three years and took nine months off in which she did more modeling in Europe. Her photographs have appeared in such magazine as Maxim and FHM.
Leslie had her first film role in the comedy Private Parts (1997), which was followed by her first television series (where she replaced the departed Susan Walters as the female lead) in the second season of The Big Easy (1996) on USA. Unfortunately, the show was canceled just months later.
In 1999 she appeared as the lead character on the WB Network television series Popular (1999). The show was a success among teenagers, and led Leslie to more recognizable film roles, such as The Skulls (2000) and See Spot Run (2001). Most recently she has appeared as intern Erin Harkins in ER (1994).- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Joshua David Duhamel was born in Minot, North Dakota. His mother, Bonny L., is a retired high school teacher, and the Executive Director of Minot's Downtown Business & Profession Association, and his father, Larry Duhamel, is an advertisement salesman. Josh has three younger sisters: Ashlee, McKenzee and Kassidy. His ancestry is German, and smaller amounts of Norwegian, French-Canadian, English, Irish, and Austrian (his last name is very common among Francophones in the world). Before his acting career, the football player studied biology and earned his Bachelor's degree at Minot State University with the intention of pursuing dentistry.
At 26 years old, Josh worked in construction, and it was by chance that he got into showbusiness. Modeling eventually gave way to acting as Josh was asked to audition for the title character in The Picture of Dorian Gray (2004), from the novel by Oscar Wilde.
Duhamel can be seen in Vince Gilligan and David Shore's CBS series, "Battle Creek." He is in production on four films: "Lost In The Sun," "Bravetown," "The Wrong Stuff," and "Beyond Deceit."
Duhamel also starred alongside Hillary Swank and Emmy Rossum in the George C. Wolfe directed drama, "You're Not You." Duhamel also starred opposite Julianne Hough in Lasse Hallstrom's "Safe Haven," a drama based on the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks and the thriller "Scenic Route," which tells the story of two friends stranded in the desert. In addition, Duhamel was seen in the star-studded, ensemble comedy "Movie 43" alongside Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, Richard Gere among many others. Co-directed by Peter Farrelly and Patrik Forsberg, the film features various intertwining, raunchy tales.
Other projects include Garry Marshall's "New Year's Eve" alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert DeNiro, Halle Berry, and Hilary Swank and Michael Bay's "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," where he reprised his role of Captain William Lennox for the third installment of the franchise. Additional film credits include the romantic comedy "Life as We Know It" alongside Katherine Heigl, "Ramona and Beezus," "When in Rome" and "The Romantics." On television, Josh is best known for his role as Danny McCoy on the NBC crime drama "Las Vegas." Additionally, he lent his voice to Nickelodeon's Emmy Award-winning animated series "Fanboy & Chum Chum" and starred in several seasons of the long-running ABC soap opera "All My Children," in which he received three consecutive Daytime Emmy nominations.
On January 10 2009, Josh married Fergie Duhamel, better known as Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas. They have one child together, Axl Jack Duhamel. They reside in Los Angeles.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger. The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California. In December of 1946, when she was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest. Two years later her sister Janet, did likewise. Being the daughter of a printer, Angie at first had visions of becoming a writer, but gave this up after winning her first beauty contest. After finishing college she worked as a secretary in a Burbank airplane parts factory for 3-1/2 years. In 1953 she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took second place. In August of the same year she was one of five winners in a beauty contest sponsored by NBC and appeared in several TV variety shows. She got her first bit part in a Warner Brothers movie in 1954 and gained television fame in the TV series The Millionaire (1955) and got her first good film role opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo (1959). Her success then climbed until she became one of the nation's top movie stars.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Actor and model Kellan Lutz was born in Dickinson, North Dakota, to Karla (Theesfeld) and Bradley Lutz. He has six brothers and a sister, and is of German, as well as smaller amounts of English, Swedish, and Dutch, descent. As a child, his family moved around, and he grew up in North Dakota, the Midwest and Arizona. Upon high school graduation, Lutz relocated to California to attend Chapman University and study Chemical Engineering, but left in order to pursue a career in acting.
Lutz had picked up a few modeling jobs as a teenager, but got his first TV break with a small role in The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) in 2004. More television success followed, including parts in The Comeback (2005) and Generation Kill (2008). He was also cast in some film roles, including Accepted (2006) and Prom Night (2008), but his major break came in 2008 when he won the role of vampire Emmett Cullen in the smash hit Twilight (2008), and its subsequent sequels.- Leslie Stefanson was born on 10 May 1971 in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She is an actress, known for The General's Daughter (1999), The Hunted (2003) and Unbreakable (2000).
- Charles R. Korsmo is an Assistant Professor of Law and the U.S. director of the Canada-U.S. Law Institute at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, where he teaches courses in corporate law, corporate finance, and torts. Korsmo's articles have appeared in the William & Mary Law Review and Brooklyn Law Review, among others. His scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and in the New York Times.
Prior to joining the faculty at Case Western, Korsmo was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Brooklyn Law School. Korsmo clerked for the Honorable Ralph K. Winter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and practiced in the New York offices of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. From 2001-2003, Korsmo worked at the Environmental Protection Agency and for the U.S House of Representatives as staff for the House Policy Committee and the Homeland Security Committee. In 2011, President Obama appointed Korsmo to the Board of Trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. He holds a BS in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a JD from Yale Law School. - Actor
- Additional Crew
- Sound Department
Six-foot-three and weighing in at a lean, mean 215, Michael Forest was a rugged-looking addition to the Roger Corman and Gene Corman's list of leading men during their 1950s heyday. Between Corman films, he was a stage actor who worked in Shakespearean plays and other legitimate productions as classy as his real name (Gerald Michael Charlebois). Born in Harvey, North Dakota, he moved with his family at a very early age to Seattle, attended the University of Washington for a year and then made his way south to the sunnier campuses of San Jose State. Graduating with a B.A. in English and drama, Forest came to Hollywood in 1955 and started acting on TV and on stage at the Players Ring. In 1957, he began to study with veteran actor/acting teacher Jeff Corey, in whose classes Forest first encountered Roger Corman. Forest has also worked extensively on TV and European films.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Ann Sothern's film career started as an extra in 1927. Originally a redhead, she began to bleach her hair blonde for comedy roles. After working at MGM and on Broadway, Ann was signed by Columbia Pictures for Let's Fall in Love (1933). The next year she would work with Eddie Cantor in his hit Kid Millions (1934). For the next two years, Ann would appear in a number of "B" pictures until she was dropped by Columbia in 1936. She then went to RKO, where the quality of her films did not improve. She appeared in a series of "B' pictures movies with Gene Raymond, but her career was going nowhere. In 1938 she left RKO and played the tart in Trade Winds (1938), which got her a contract at MGM. She was given the lead in a "B" comedy about a brassy, energetic showgirl not salesgirl--originally intended for Jean Harlow--that wound up becoming a huge hit and spawned a series of sequels that ran until 1947: Maisie (1939). Ann also appeared in such well received features as Brother Orchid (1940), Cry 'Havoc' (1943) and A Letter to Three Wives (1949). After 1950 the roles dried up and Ann turned to television and another hit series, playing the meddlesome Susie in the 1953 series Private Secretary (1953). The series was canceled in 1957 and Ann came back in The Ann Sothern Show (1958), which ran from 1958 to 1961. In 1965, she would be the voice of the 1928 Porter in the camp classic My Mother the Car (1965). While the 1970s and 1980s were relatively quiet for Ann, she would be nominated for an Academy Award for her role as the neighbor of Lillian Gish and Bette Davis in The Whales of August (1987).- Actress
- Producer
Susan Bridges was born in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She is known for Cold Feet (1989), Now What? and Extra (1994). She has been married to Jeff Bridges since 5 June 1977. They have three children.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Timm Sharp was born in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. Timm is an actor and producer, known for Enlightened (2011), Undeclared (2001) and Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kam went to Concordia College in Minnesota where she graduated with a degree in Communications and Political Science. The day after graduation, she moved to Chicago and modeled for the next couple of months before moving to New York. Her first role came when directer John Woo selected her as the lead in his pilot "Blackjack". Kam now lives near UCLA in Los Angeles. ((Anonymous))- Dorothy Adams was born on 8 January 1900 in Hannah, North Dakota, USA. She was an actress, known for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), The Killing (1956) and The Ten Commandments (1956). She was married to Byron Foulger. She died on 16 March 1988 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Peggy Lee was Born Norma Dolores Egstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota, on May 26, 1920. At age four her mother died. Peggy's father, a railroad station agent, remarried but later left home, leaving Peggy's care entrusted to a stepmother who physically abused her. Peggy later memorialized this in the calypso number "One Beating a Day", one of 22 songs she co-wrote for the autobiographical musical "Peg", in which she made her Broadway debut in 1983 at the age of 62. As a youngster Peggy worked as a milkmaid, later turning to singing for money in her teens. While singing on a local radio station in Fargo, the program director there suggested she change her name to Peggy Lee. Peggy's big break came when Benny Goodman hired her to sing with his band after hearing her perform. Peggy shot to stardom when she and Goodman cut the hit record "Why Don't You Do Right?" and went out on her own to record such classics as "Fever", "Lover", "Golden Earrings", "Big Spender" and "Is That All There Is?" - the latter winning her a Grammy Award in 1969. Peggy's vocal style provided a distinctive imprint to countless swing tunes, ballads and big band numbers. She was considered the type of performer equally capable of interpreting a song as uniquely as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith. Her 1989 album, "Peggy Sings the Blues", was a Grammy Award nominee. Peggy was a prolific songwriter and arranger and her 1990 "The Peggy Lee Songbook" contained four songs she wrote with guitarist John Chiodini. Peggy also wrote for jazz greats Duke Ellington, who called her "The Queen", and Johnny Mercer, and composer Quincy Jones. Also in 1990 Peggy was awarded the coveted Pied Piper Award presented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). She made her mark in Hollywood as an actress, winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as the hard-drinking singer in the jazz saga, Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) and composed songs for the 1955 Walt Disney animated classic Lady and the Tramp (1955). The animated film featured a character named Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. Later she sued Disney and won a landmark legal judgment for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the film. Peggy's private life was racked by physical ailments, a near-fatal fall in 1976, diabetes and a stroke in 1998. She was married four times, all ending in divorce. She and first husband, guitarist Dave Barbour, had a daughter, Nicki, her only child. Peggy and Dave were on the verge of a reconciliation in 1965, but he died of a heart attack before the couple got back together. Peggy has left a vast legend of music that is constantly finding new generations of fans.- Kristin Rudrüd was born on 23 May 1955 in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She is an actress, known for Fargo (1996), Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and Pleasantville (1998).
- Actor
- Production Designer
Raymond Cornelius Boyle, frequently credited as Dirk London, was an American small part character actor of the 1950s. Predominantly active on the small screen, he became best known for playing Morgan Earp (1851-1882) in fifteen episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955), starring Hugh O'Brian as the eponymous gunfighter. Boyle found steady work in a staple of early western and police shows, including some recurring appearances in Gang Busters (1952), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955), Highway Patrol (1955) and Gunsmoke (1955). A rare higher profile role saw him cast as a gangster colluding with Martians in Republic's hilarious serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) (Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy -- then very much at the beginning of his career -- can be glimpsed as one of the zombies!).
After his retirement from acting, Boyle worked as production designer/art director on a couple of films in the 1970s. His second wife (from 1954) was the actress Jan Shepard.- Clint Ritchie was born on 9 August 1938 in Grafton, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor, known for Patton (1970), One Life to Live (1968) and Centennial (1978). He died on 31 January 2009 in Roseville, California, USA.
- Fred Hurt was born on 10 July 1943 in Minot, North Dakota, USA. He was married to Jennifer Sheets and Lorrayne Frances Leier. He died on 11 July 2023 in Glendale, Oregon, USA.
- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Shadoe Stevens started off in radio at 11-years-old in his hometown of Jamestown, North Dakota. Urban Legend has it that LIFE Magazine picked up the story that he was on the air as "The World's Youngest Disc Jockey." He graduated from high school, then for three years majored in Art at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, before switching to Drama and Journalism at the University of Arizona for another two years, all the while working full time in radio to help put himself through school.
It was then that he was given the chance to move to Boston to become a DJ at WRKO. On his way to Boston, his name was changed to Shadoe in a phone call from Alamogordo, New Mexico. In one year, his huge number one success at WRKO in Boston led him to Los Angeles.
With his resonant voice and command on the airwaves, Stevens became one of the City's most popular radio personalities. He then began his first major television career move as the sidekick/announcer for "The Steve Allen Show." Back in radio a short time later, he would become a legendary Program Director, creating and launching "World Famous KROQ-FM.
Leaving radio after creating three number one L.A. stations - KRLA, KROQ-FM, and KMET-FM - Shadoe went into advertising. He created the Branding, Advertising and Marketing campaign for a West Coast home electronics company called The Federated Group. The campaign increased sales 500%. In four years, the Federated Group grew from 14 local stores to 78 superstores in 5 states. It was one of the most successful regional advertising campaigns in U.S. history and the first regional ad campaign ever to have received a 2-page spread in Time Magazine. His Awards in advertising include Clio Awards and the Big Apple Award. In radio, he received the Billboard Magazine Personality of the Year Award.
Shadoe's more than 1,100 different television commercials for Federated led first to a 3-picture deal with Dino DeLaurentis Entertainment and the cult movie "TRAXX," to the number one TV series "Hollywood Squares," then to the Fred Silverman produced one hour CBS series "Max Monroe: Loose Cannon," followed by the hit CBS sitcom "Dave's World."
Along the way, Shadoe replaced Casey Kasem as the host of "American Top 40." This became the biggest radio show in the world with one billion listeners a week in 110 countries. During this time, Shadoe was a guest star on more than a dozen television series including "Beverly Hills 90210," "Baywatch," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Caroline in the City," "Clueless," "Fast Track," and "Burke's Law."
In motion pictures, Shadoe played the title role in "Traxx," Fred in "Mr. Saturday Night," Maxwell in "Bucket of Blood," and Djony Dakota in "Shadoevision" for HBO.
Shadoe was the Founder, Chairman, and President of RhythmRadio - "The Sound of the World in a Good Mood," that was the first world-wide music network and delivered programming on the radio in 30 countries and programming on the Internet delivered in 7 languages.
Shadoe created "Cabo Wabo Radio" for rock star Sammy Hagar, designing an "all up-all the time" rock music format with studios in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Bel Air, California. It became the number one Alternative Music format online in the world.
Shadoe was the voice of "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" from 2005 to 2015, and has continued to be the voice of countless commercials and television shows including The Grammys, The Emmys, and Comic Relief.
Shadoe created and produced 85 episodes of a podcast series, called, "Blackout Television," Improv-Comedy-Theater episodes with the All-Black Cast famous for the legendary "Black Version" improvisational theater series.
Shadoe then created series "MentalRadio," - mentalradio.net and the free app mentalradio - more than 12 hours of stories, parodies, and adventures, and nearly 300,000 downloads. It has been described as: "Word Jazz & an Audio-Visual Acid Trip of Spiritual Crack."
Shadoe has been "enthusiastically married" since 1986 to his third wife, Beverly. His daughter, Amber Stevens, is a successful actress, having starred in the ABC Family series "Greek" for four years, and the movie "22 Jump Street" in 2014. Shadoe's daughter Chynarose is in accounting and money management in Los Angles. His son Brad, from his first marriage, works at Boeing in Ogden, Utah in aerospace and defense.
Stevens continues to work in multi-media art, painting, writing, production, radio, and has written 5 children's books.
In development is a live, theatrical version of his critically acclaimed audio theater podcast series MentalRadio, in partnership with Gil Smith, president of the Montalban Theater, MentalRadioLive is described as a Musical Comic Book and will debut in 2024 in the heart of Hollywood.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), known professionally as Wiz Khalifa, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and actor. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007. His Eurodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah", received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Tracks charts in 2008, becoming his first minor hit.
Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. and released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mix-tape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records. He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow", which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011. He followed that album with O.N.I.F.C. on December 4, 2012, which was backed by the singles "Work Hard, Play Hard" and "Remember You". Wiz released his fifth album Blacc Hollywood on August 18, 2014, backed by the lead single "We Dem Boyz". In March 2015, he released "See You Again" for the soundtrack of the film Furious 7 and the song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 12 non-consecutive weeks.
Khalifa was born Cameron Jibril Thomaz on September 8, 1987 in Minot, North Dakota, to parents serving in the military. His parents divorced when Khalifa was about three years old. He is a military brat with his parents' military service causing him to move regularly. Khalifa lived in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan before settling in Pittsburgh with his mother in around 1996 where he attended Taylor Allderdice High School. Soon after moving to Pittsburgh, Khalifa began to write and perform his own lyrics before he was a teenager.
His stage name is derived from Khalifa, an Arabic word meaning "successor", and wisdom, which was shortened to Wiz when Khalifa was a young boy. Khalifa stated to Spinner.com that the name also came from being called "young Wiz 'cause I was good at everything I did, and my granddad is Muslim, so he gave me that name; he felt like that's what I was doing with my music." He got a tattoo of his stage name on his 17th birthday.
By the age of 15 he was regularly recording his music in a studio called I.D. Labs. The management of the studio was so impressed by his lyrics that they allowed Khalifa to record for free. This allowed him to receive professional grade studio time at no cost to him. Also, this allowed him to receive more exposure at such a young age than other artists.- Audra Mari was born on 8 January 1994 in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She has been married to Josh Duhamel since 10 September 2022. They have one child.
- Arthur Peterson was born on 18 November 1912 in Mandan, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor, known for Soap (1977), Mission: Impossible (1966) and The Twilight Zone (1959). He was married to Norma Ransome. He died on 31 October 1996 in Pasadena, California, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Jan Maxwell was born on 20 November 1956 in Fargo, North Dakota, USA. She was an actress, known for BrainDead (2016), An Unfinished Life (2005) and The Good Wife (2009). She was married to Robert Emmet Lunney. She died on 11 February 2018 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
The accordion maestro provided nearly two decades of squeaky-clean music and family entertainment on TV every Saturday night between 1955 and 1971 on prime-time, and for another 11 years in syndication. His trademarks included his "A uh-one, a uh-two" intro and a perpetual bubble machine.- Writer
- Actress
- Stunts
Marneen Lynne Fields was born in Minot, North Dakota, on August 16th. She's the only daughter of Robert Leo Fields II, a country-western singer and square dance caller who became the inventor of the Inflatable Door Seal, and Ruby Marie Farris-Fields a homemaker who had dreams of becoming a writer. Marneen was a sickly child born with emphysema and an enlarged heart who wasn't expected to live to be five years old. As a young second grader, Marneen was somewhat of a child prodigy in math taking algebra classes with teenagers at the local high school. She was an exceptional young athlete winning first place in all the races one day at her elementary school track meet along with being a shortstop softball all-star making the Culver City Newspaper each week. One year she won the dance contest at the park during the Easter Egg Hunt Program and wanted to be a dancer when she grew up. Marneen was also a multi-musician playing keyboard, string bass, and clarinet in her elementary school band. She started doing handstands and back-bends those years and the neighborhood kids would line the block following her, counting to see how far she could walk on her hands.
She was awarded Athlete of the Year in 9th grade (beating out all the boys), for obtaining the highest scores on the President's Physical Fitness Tests at Sinaloa Jr. High School in Simi Valley, California. At sixteen years old Marneen created and opened the first Simi Valley Parks and Recreations program in gymnastics for children and adults of all ages including handicapped children of all types, mentally challenged, deaf and blind. In 1972 she won Most Talented Cheerleader out of all the cheerleaders at the Southern California Cheerleader Camp in Santa Barbara, California. That same year she lost all the hearing in her left ear due to a throat infection that left her severely hearing impaired. The infection destroyed 80% of her hearing nerves in the left ear just missing her equilibrium nerves and making her legally half deaf. Had the infection hit Marneen's equilibrium nerves she would not have gone on to achieve what she achieved in her early career in gymnastics and stunts. Marneen continued to coach gymnastics throughout college and during her early career as a stunt woman.
In 1973 Marneen Fields graduated Royal High School in Simi Valley, California with a major honor. She was one of three women in the United States awarded a full-ride athletic scholarship in gymnastics to Utah State University in Logan, Utah where she also minored in theater arts and dance. In the early 70s, It was rare for women to be awarded athletic scholarships in gymnastics, they didn't give them to women back then. At USU Marneen was the number one gymnast for the college competing at the national intercollegiate class one advance all-around level due to her ability to perform moves similar to Olympic Gold Medalist Olga Korbut. She was ranked third in the entire state of Utah, third on floor exercise and fifth on balance beam.
During the summer of 1976, she was home from college in Ventura, California recovering from an ankle reconstruction surgery when she was discovered by legendary stuntman Paul Stader (Cary Grant's double). Paul recognized the champion gymnastic talent in Marneen and recruited her to join his famous film and TV stunt school to become a Hollywood stunt woman. By December 1976 Marneen landed her first acting role being cast by Eddie Foy III as one of the mischievous schoolmates in the MOW "The Spell," and she also landed the stunt job performing the backward high fall from the top of the hanging rope in the gymnasium. By 1977 she was a regular stunt performer on the hit TV series, "The Man from Atlantis." On the series, Marneen performed risky high dives, including a dive out of a helicopter into a swimming pool to resuscitate a dying Patrick Duffy. That year she became the first woman photographed doing the famous Man from Atlantis swim at the bottom of the ocean floor. But, it wasn't until the summer of 1977 when she appeared opposite Clint Eastwood in "The Gauntlet," and she performed the highly dangerous backward jump with a half twist off the moving train into only some sand that she launched to the top of stunt world. For fifteen years, Marneen appeared on TV shows and movie screens around the world performing many more dangerous high falls on MOWs like, "Goliath Awaits" and "Death Ray 2000"; high dives on "Man from Atlantis"; feet first jumps out of airplanes on "The Rockford Files," and off tall buildings on "Quincy"; fight scenes on "Wonder Woman" and "The Return of Mike Hammer"; underwater scuba work on "Project UFO"; and fire scenes on "The Runner Stumbles." By 1985 Marneen had been coined Hollywood's Original Fall Girl and awarded a Fall Girl license plate by J.P. Bill Catching and the Stuntman's Association. Marneen tackled more dangerous stunt jobs as she got cast in many stunt acting roles performing her own stunts along with straight acting roles on prime time TV shows and in feature films.
Wikipedia lists Marneen Fields as one of the prominent stunt women and stunt actresses of the 1970s and 1980s. During those years, the world saw her versatility as an actress, and great gymnastic talent as a stunt woman, step into the shoes of 100 of the world's most famous actresses to perform death-defying feats for them, and for herself when cast in a role that required a stunt. Some of the film and TV shows she's appeared in and the actresses she did stunts for are: Jane Seymour "Battlestar Galactica," Priscilla Presley "The Fall Guy," Shirley Jones "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure," Michelle Phillips "The Man with Bogart's Face," Morgan Fairchild "Time Express," Belinda Montgomery "The Man from Atlantis," Mary Crosby "Dynasty," Samantha Doane "The Gauntlet," Linda Purl "Matlock," Natasha Richardson "Patty Hearst," Karen Black "Police Story: Confessions of a Lady Cop," Linda Hamilton "Murder She Wrote," Melanie Griffith "She's in the Army Now," Tovah Feldshuh "Terror out of the Sky," Dee Wallace "The Howling," Kim Cattrall "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries," Barbara Hershey "From Here to Eternity," Heather Menzies "Logan's Run," and many more.
By 1978 Marneen had become somewhat of an Angelina Jolie, in smaller roles, but never the less, performing her own stunts when landing acting roles. She kept her stunt woman day job as her career transformed from stunt woman to stunt actress to respected character actress. She got cast in more stunt actress jobs by famous directors like Stanley Kramer "The Runner Stumbles," Irwin Allen "The Swarm," Peter Medak "Otherworld," and James Fargo "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" to name a few. She got cast as an actress and stunt-actress to work opposite in scenes with A-List actors like Clint Eastwood "The Gauntlet," Dick Van Dyke "The Runner Stumbles," Jeff Goldblum "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Bruce Boxleitner "Scarecrow and Mrs. King," Fred MacMurray and Olivia DE Havilland "The Swarm," George Kennedy "Airport 79 - The Concord," Mary Waronov and Marjoe Gortner "Hellhole," and others. From 1979-1985 Marneen received professional training as an actress by celebrity acting coaches, Jeff Corey "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," and Victor French son-in-law to the great Lee J. Cobb and co-star on two Emmy winning series with Michael Landon, "Little House on the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven." It was during those years that Marneen set new goals to become a famous actress one day as she also appeared in fifteen theatrical productions throughout the Los Angeles area.
Marneen's dreams to become a famous actress finally started to come true by the mid-80s when she became the first woman to come from the pure stunt arena to land the large co-star role in the Arkoff International Production of "Hellhole" as the religious insanity victim who receives the chemical lobotomy in highly dramatic scenes opposite Mary Woronov and Marjoe Gortner. During the filming director, Pierre DeMoro was quoted saying, "Marneen Fields displays a Sissy Spacek star quality." By 1988 Marneen Fields received significant industry recognition as an actress when she found herself featured on the coveted page three of "Star Magazine" in an article titled, "Clint Eastwood's Hug Changed My Life: Shapely Stunt Gal is Now an Actress." The article displayed a sexy glamour photo of Marneen taken by celebrity photographer Alan Houghton (Sophia Loren, Natalie Wood, and Kim Basinger). During the photo-shoot, Alan told Marneen she was the most versatile actress he had ever photographed.
Cut to, a wicked twist of fate involving a near-fatal car accident that derailed Marneen's blossoming acting career and ended her stunt and stunt acting careers. Marneen's personal life ironically imitating her creative life of surviving disasters on screen. With years lost to recovery from the crash that required a series of life-threatening abdominal operations, along with a diagnosis of third stage melanoma and losing part of her right thigh to the disease. Marneen spent the next decade not fighting Freddy Krueger as she did in "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge," but fighting for her life while enduring heights of continual excruciating pain. For a decade, Marneen never thought she would return to doing normal everyday tasks like hanging laundry, let alone ever get on her feet again to perform. After fifteen years of extremely stressful career demands performing dangerous falls onto her spinal column doing stunt work, combined with the near-fatal car crash, and numerous pelvic operations, these tragedies would leave Marneen having to live and deal with significant Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of her life.
By channeling a resilience and a faith that has defined Marneen's life so far, she fought through the pain and faced all the world could throw at her by learning to roll with the punches. In the end she would emerge from this lonely tunnel of horrors spiritually heartbroken, physically shattered, and emotionally devastated. Eventually, she found the courage to summon her enormous reserves of strength and find a new belief in triumphantly reinventing herself. Today she continues to act and has become a potent force both in the public spotlight as an award-winning pop-blues-soft rock singer, and behind the scenes as a scriptwriter, ASCAP composer, producer, director, and an author. Healed by music and reaching her childhood dreams to become a famous singer, Marneen has breathed new life, direction, and purpose into her career. Her rich, passionate, alto voice compared to the late Grammy Hall of Fame artist Whitney Houston, while her pop-rock compositions have been compared to acclaimed Grammy-winning songwriter Diane Warren.
2023 will see two books about Marneen's life and career publish, "Cartwheels & Halos: The True Marneen Lynne Fields Story" and "Rollin' with the Punches: An Examination of the Stunt and Acting Careers of Marneen Fields. (40 Years of Surviving Highfalls, Hellholes, and Freddy's Fingernails)." In 2019 Marneen published an eBook, paperback book, and audio-book she's written on the craft of acting titled, "The Illusive Craft of Acting: An Actor's Preparation Process." The books are available on Amazon, Smashwords, CDBaby, and all the popular outlets as are her original award-winning compositions.