Guest Stars on The Love Boat
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- Richard J. Butkus, "Dick," was born in Chicago, Illinois, December 9, 1942. He graduated from the University of Illinois where he was a two time All- American line backer. A first round draft pick of the Chicago Bears, Dick played for them from 1965-1973, and was named All-Pro linebacker seven times. Mr. Butkus was elected into the NFL "Football Hall of Fame" at Canton, Ohio. Many football gurus consider Dick Butkus the finest linebacker in the history of football.
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Phylicia Rashad was born in Houston, Texas to African-American parents Vivian Elizabeth (Ayers), a poet and art director, and Andrew Arthur Allen, an orthodontist. As a child, Phylicia, her older brother Andrew (called Tex), and younger sister, dancer and actress Debbie Allen, lived in Mexico. She has another brother, Hugh Allen (a real-estate banker in North Carolina). Their mother decided to live in Mexico to give the Allen children a brief experience of not having to endure the chronic racism and segregation that was typical of Texas during the 1950s. Phylicia and Debbie are fluent in Spanish. Phylicia graduated from Howard University and later taught drama there.
With younger sister Debbie Allen, she has a production company, D.A.D., which stood for Doctor Allen's Daughters. Her Pulitzer-nominated mother is the artistic and free spirit that has influenced and encouraged the remarkable creativity that so marks Rashad as a performer.- Actress
- Additional Crew
Teresa Ganzel is better known as a recurring cast member of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962). She replaced the late Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady in the popular "Tea Time Movie" skits. She has had several stereotype (ditzy, buxom, blonde bimbo) roles in films such as The Toy (1982) with Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor, Movie Madness (1982). In the film, she had a memorable topless scene. She made a turn when she appeared in Transylvania 6-5000 (1985). She played the overprotective and confrontational mother, Elizabeth Ellison.- Actress
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Courteney Cox was born on June 15th, 1964 in Birmingham, Alabama, into an affluent Southern family. She is the daughter of Courteney (Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox (1930-2001), a businessman. She was the baby of the family with two older sisters (Virginia and Dottie) and an older brother, Richard, Jr. She was raised in an exclusive society town, Mountain Brook, Alabama. Courteney was the archetypal daddy's girl, and therefore was understandably devastated when, in 1974, her parents divorced, and her father moved to Florida.
She became a rebellious teen, and did not make things easy for her mother, and new stepfather, New York businessman Hunter Copeland. Now, she is great friends with both. She attended Mountain Brook High School, where she was a cheerleader, tennis player and swimmer. In her final year, she received her first taste of modeling. She appeared in an advert for the store, Parisians. Upon graduation, she left Alabama to study architecture and interior design at Mount Vernon College. After one year she dropped out to a pursue a modeling career in New York, after being signed by the prestigious Ford Modelling Agency. She appeared on the covers of teen magazines such as Tiger Beat and Little Miss, plus numerous romance novels. She then moved on to commercials for Maybeline, Noxema, New York Telephone Company and Tampax.
While modeling, she attended acting classes, as her real dream and ambition was to be an actress. In 1984, she landed herself a small part in one episode of As the World Turns (1956) as a young débutante named Bunny. Her first big break, however, was being cast by Brian De Palma in the Bruce Springsteen video "Dancing in The Dark". In 1985, she moved to LA to star alongside Dean Paul Martin in Misfits of Science (1985). It was a flop, but a few years later, she was chosen out of thousands of hopefuls to play Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, psychology major Lauren Miller in Family Ties (1982).
In 1989, Family Ties (1982) ended, and Cox went through a lean spell in her career, featuring in unmemorable movies such as Mr. Destiny (1990) with Michael Caine. Fortunes changed dramatically for Cox, when in 1994, she starred alongside Jim Carrey in the unexpected hit Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), and a year later she was cast as Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends (1994). It was this part that turned her into an international superstar and led to an American Comedy Award nomination. In 1996 Cox starred in Wes Craven's horror/comedy Scream (1996) . This movie grossed over $100 million at the box office, and won Cox rave reviews for her standout performance as the wickedly bitchy and smug TV reporter Gale Weathers. She went on to play this character again in each of the three sequels. Not only did her involvement in this movie lead to critical acclaim, but it also led to her meeting actor husband David Arquette. He played her on-screen love interest Dewey, and life imitated art as the two fell in love for real. Their wedding took place in San Francisco, at the historic Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, on June 12th, 1999. Joined by 200 guests, including Cox's film star friends Liam Neeson and Kevin Spacey, the happy couple finally became Mr. and Mrs. Arquette.- Actor
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A grand, well-respected character lead and support of stage, film and television, most people mistakenly think New Zealander Clive Revill is British. A delightfully comic eccentric praised for his sterling work on the musical stage, the blue-eyed, curly, red-haired gent is also highly regarded for his formidable dramatic work in Shakespearean roles.
Clive Selsby Revill was born on April 18, 1930, in Wellington, New Zealand, and educated at Rongotai College and Victoria University (Wellington). Once trained for a career as an accountant, he abruptly switched gears and made his stage debut in Auckland, New Zealand playing Sebastian in "Twelfth Night" in 1950. He then moved to England to study with the Old Vic School in London. While there he appeared at Stratford-on-Avon in mid-1950s presentations of "Hamlet", "Love's Labour's Lost", "The Merchant of Venice", "Julius Caesar" and "The Tempest", among others.
Having made his Broadway debut back in 1952 with "Mr. Pickwick", the man of many skills took a juicy chunk out of the Big Apple upon returning to New York in the 1960s with his critically lauded, Tony Award-nominated work in "Irma La Douce" and as "Fagin" in "Oliver!" He has amused audiences for years with his larger-than-life musical roles, particularly in such Gilbert and Sullivan operettas as "The Mikado" and "The Pirates of Penzance". Others have included "Sherry", "Lolita" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" -- replacing the late George Rose in the last mentioned after that actor's untimely death in 1988.
Making an inauspicious debut in an unbilled role in 1956, his more pronounced movie work includes Kaleidoscope (1966), The Assassination Bureau (1969), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Avanti! (1972), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, The Legend of Hell House (1973) (a rare lead), Mack the Knife (1989), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) and Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995). Quite proficient at ethnic roles (playing everything from Chinese to Russian), Clive's acute sense of comic timing and uncanny use of body language is parallel to none, often engaging audiences as delightfully pompous, even "hissable" gents.
From the 1990s into the millennium, Clive has pretty much settled in the States. His distinctive voice has been greatly utilized in animated features and video games (Dr. Doom, Darth Gravus, Jetfire), plus a few films including Intrepid (2000), Crime and Punishment (2002), Gentlemen Broncos (2009) and The Queen of Spain (2016). Twice divorced, Revill has one daughter, Kate Selsby (aka Kate Selsby Revill), by his second marriage to Suzi Schor-Revill. He makes his home in Los Angeles.- Actress
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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.- Actor
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Thom Bray was born on 30 April 1954 in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Prince of Darkness (1987), DeepStar Six (1989) and Nash Bridges (1996). He has been married to Jane Staugas since 22 May 1983. They have three children.- Quinn Cummings was born on 13 August 1967 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Goodbye Girl (1977), Family (1976) and Remington Steele (1982).
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Melanie Mayron was born on 20 October 1952 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is a director and actress, known for Julia (2022), Jane the Virgin (2014) and Thirtysomething (1987).- Actor
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Sargent was a trim, handsome man with a longish chin. He played a variety of gawky businessmen roles in feature films before finding a niche in tv history as the second Darrin on "Bewitched". Shortly before his death, Sargent publicly proclaimed he was gay, and became what he called "a retroactive role model" in the battle for gay rights.- Actor
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Anson Williams was born on 25 September 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Happy Days (1974), Baywatch (1989) and Star Trek: Voyager (1995). He has been married to Sharon MaHarry since 6 May 2023. He was previously married to Jackie Gerken and Lorrie Mahaffey.- Actor
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Dreamy Tab Hunter stood out in film history as one of the hottest teen idols of the 1950s era. With blond, tanned, surfer-boy good looks, he was artificially groomed and nicknamed "The Sigh Guy" by the Hollywood studio system, yet managed to continue his career long after his "golden boy" prime.
Hunter was born Arthur Kelm on July 11, 1931 in New York City, to Gertrude (Gelien) and Charles Kelm. His father was Jewish and his mother was a German Catholic immigrant. Following his parents' divorce, Hunter grew up in California with his mother, older brother Walter, and maternal grandparents, Ida (Sonnenfleth) and John Henry Gelien. His mother changed her sons' surnames to her maiden name, Gelien. Leaving school and joining the Coast Guard at age fifteen (he lied about his age), he was eventually discharged when the age deception was revealed. Returning home, his life-long passion for horseback riding led to a job with a riding academy.
Hunter's fetching handsomeness and trim, athletic physique eventually steered the Californian toward the idea of acting. An introduction to famed agent Henry Willson had Tab signing on the dotted line and what emerged, along with a major career, was the stage moniker of "Tab Hunter." Willson was also responsible with pointing hopeful Roy Fitzgerald towards stardom under the pseudonym Rock Hudson. With no previous experience Tab made his first, albeit minor, film debut in the racially trenchant drama The Lawless (1950) starring Gail Russell and Macdonald Carey. His only line in the movie was eventually cut upon release. It didn't seem to make a difference for he co-starred in his very next film, the British-made Island of Desire (1952) opposite a somewhat older (by ten years) Linda Darnell, which was set during WWII on a deserted, tropical South Seas isle. His shirt remained off for a good portion of the film, which certainly did not go unnoticed by his ever-growing legion of female (and male) fans.
Signed by Warner Bros., stardom was clinched a few years later with another WWII epic Battle Cry (1955), based on the Leon Uris novel, in which he again played a boyish soldier sharing torrid scenes with an older woman (this time Dorothy Malone, playing a love-starved Navy wife). Thoroughly primed as one of Hollywood's top beefcake commodities, the tabloid magazines had a field day initiating an aggressive campaign to "out" Hunter as gay, which would have ruined him. To combat the destructive tactics, Tab was seen escorting a number of Hollywood's lovelies at premieres and parties. In the meantime, he was seldom out of his military fatigues on film, keeping his fans satisfied in such popular dramas as The Sea Chase (1955), The Burning Hills (1956) and The Girl He Left Behind (1956)--the last two opposite the equally popular Natalie Wood. At around this time, Hunter managed to parlay his boy-next-door film celebrity into a singing career. He topped the charts for over a month with the single "Young Love" in 1957 and produced other "top 40" singles as well.
Like other fortunate celebrity-based singers such as Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen, his musical reign was brief. Out of it, however, came the most notable success of his film career top-billing as baseball fan Joe Hardy in the classic Faustian musical Damn Yankees (1958) opposite Gwen Verdon and Ray Walston, who recreated their devil-making Broadway roles. Musically, Tab may have been overshadowed but he brought with him major star power and the film became a crowd pleaser. He continued on with the William A. Wellman-directed Lafayette Escadrille (1958) as, yet again, a wholesome soldier, this time in World War I. More spicy love scenes came with That Kind of Woman (1959), an adult comedy-drama which focused on soldier Hunter and va-va-voom mistress Sophia Loren demonstrating some sexual chemistry on a train.
Seldom a favorite with the film critics, the 1960s brought about a career change for Tab. He begged out of his restrictive contract with Warners and ultimately paid the price. With no studio to protect him, he was at the mercy of several trumped-up lawsuits. Worse yet, handsome Troy Donahue had replaced him as the new beefcake on the block. With no film offers coming his way, he starred in his own series The Tab Hunter Show (1960), a rather featherweight sitcom that centered around his swinging bachelor pad. The series last only one season. On the positive side he clocked in with over 200 TV programs over the long stretch and was nominated for an Emmy award for his outstanding performance opposite Geraldine Page in a Playhouse 90 episode. Following the sparkling film comedy The Pleasure of His Company (1961) opposite Debbie Reynolds, the quality of his films fell off drastically as he found himself top-lining such innocuous fare as Operation Bikini (1963), Ride the Wild Surf (1964) (1965), City in the Sea (1965) [aka War-Gods of the Deep], and Birds Do It (1966) both here and overseas.
As for stage, a brief chance to star on Broadway happened in 1964 alongside the highly volatile Tallulah Bankhead in Tennessee Williams's "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore." It lasted five performances. He then started to travel the dinner theater circuit. Enduring a severe lull, Tab bounced back in the 1980s and 1990s -- more mature, less wholesome, but ever the looker. He gamely spoofed his old clean-cut image by appearing in delightfully tasteless John Waters' films as a romantic dangling carrot to heavyset transvestite "actress" Divine. Polyester (1981) was the first mainstream hit for Waters and Tab went on to team up with Allan Glaser to co-produce and co-star a Waters-like western spoof Lust in the Dust (1984).
Co-starring with "Exorcist" star Linda Blair in the bizarre horror film Grotesque (1988), Tab's last on-camera appearance would be in a small role in the film Dark Horse (1992), which he produced. He preferred spending most of his time secluded on his ranch and breeding horses. In 2005, he returned to the limelight when he "came out" with a tell-all memoir on his Hollywood years. His long-time partner was film producer Allan Glaser.
Tab died on July 8, 2018, in Santa Barbara, California, three days shy of his 87th birthday.- Actress
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Melissa Ellen Gilbert is an American actress, television director, producer, politician, and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. Gilbert began her career as a child actress in the late 1960s, appearing in numerous commercials and guest starring roles on television. From 1974 to 1983, she starred as Laura Ingalls Wilder, the second oldest daughter of Charles Ingalls (played by Michael Landon) on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie. During the run of Little House, Gilbert appeared in several television films, including The Diary of Anne Frank and The Miracle Worker.- Actress
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A native-born Californian, Rhonda Fleming attended Beverly Hills public and private schools. Her father was Harold Cheverton Louis (1896-1951). Her mother, Effie Olivia Graham (1891-1985), was a famous model and actress in New York. She has a son (Kent Lane), two granddaughters (Kimberly and Kelly) and four great-grandchildren (Wagner, Page, Lane and Cole). She has appeared in over 40 films, including David O. Selznick's Spellbound (1945), directed by Alfred Hitchcock; Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947); and Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase (1946). She later got starring roles in such classics as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Home Before Dark (1958), Pony Express (1953), Slightly Scarlet (1956), While the City Sleeps (1956) and The Big Circus (1959). While she was always a competent actress, she was more renowned for her exquisite beauty, and the camera absolutely adored her. One time a cameraman on one of her films remarked on how he was so struck by her beauty that, as a gag, he intentionally tried to photograph her badly; he was astonished to discover that no matter how deliberately he botched it, she still came out looking ravishing.
Among her co-stars over the years were Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, Burt Lancaster, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Rock Hudson and Ronald Reagan (with whom she made four films). In addition to motion pictures, Fleming made her Broadway debut in Clare Boothe Luce's "The Women", essayed the role of "Lalume" in "Kismet" at the Los Angeles Music Center and toured as "Madame Dubonnet" in "The Boyfriend". She made her stage musical debut in Las Vegas at the opening of the Tropicana Hotel's showroom. Later she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl in a one-woman concert of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin compositions. She also starred in a national ten-week concert tour with Skitch Henderson, featuring the music of George Gershwin. She has guest-starred on numerous television series, including Wagon Train (1957), Police Woman (1974), The Love Boat (1977), Last Hours Before Morning (1975) and a two-hour special of McMillan & Wife (1971). Waiting for the Wind (1991) reunited her with former co-star Robert Mitchum.
In private life she resides in Century City, California, and was married for 23 years to Ted Mann, a producer and chairman of Mann Theatres, until his death in January 2001. She is a member and supporter of Childhelp USA, ARCS (Achievement Rewards For College Scientists); a Life Associate of Pepperdine University; a Lifetime Member of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge; a Founding Member of the French Foundation For Alzheimer Research; a Benefactor of the Los Angeles Music Center: and a Member of the Center's Blue Ribbon Board of Directors. She is a Member of the Advisory Board of Olive Crest Treatment Centers for Abused Children and serves as a Board of Directors Trustee of World Opportunities International. Along with her husband she helped build the Jerusalem Film Institute in Israel. She also is a member of the Board of Trustees of The UCLA Foundation and a member of the Board of Advisors of the Revlon/UCLA Women's Health Research Program. In addition, she created at the City of Hope Hospital The Rhonda Fleming Mann Research Fellowship to further advance research and treatment associated with women's cancer.
In 1991, she and her husband established the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic for Women's Comprehensive Care at UCLA Medical Center. This clinic provides a full range of expert gynecologic and obstetric care to women. Since 1992, she has devoted her time to a second facility at UCLA - the Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center for Women with Cancer, which opened in early 1994. This Center is the fulfillment of her vision to create a safe, warm place where women cancer patients and their families might receive the highest quality psychosocial and emotional care as well as assistance with the complex practical problems that arise with cancer. In August 1997, the Center opened "Reflections", a unique retail store and consultation suite that carries wigs, head coverings, breast prostheses and other items to help men, women and children deal with the physical appearance changes brought on by cancer and its treatments. The staffs of the clinic, center and store are guided by her belief that caring, compassion, communication and commitment are essential components of the healing process.- Actress
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One of the most natural beauties of the 1960s with a gentle voice and personality to match, blonde Hope Lange was born in Redding Ridge, Connecticut, and performed on stage from the age of nine. She studied both drama and dance under Martha Graham, did some modeling and then worked in stock companies and on television, dancing on Jackie Gleason shows. She acted in just a handful of motion pictures, garnering an Academy Award nomination for one, and later won two Emmys for her best-loved role on television.
Hope was one of four children of an actress mother, upon whose shoulders fell the responsibility of supporting the family after the premature death of her father, the composer/arranger John Lange, at age 61 in 1942. Along with her siblings, she worked as a waitress in the family's Greenwich Village restaurant, 'Minette's of Washington Square'. By chance, she made the acquaintance of Eleanor Roosevelt, who owned an apartment in the village, and ended up walking the former First Lady's prized Scotch terrier, Fala. This got her photo into a newspaper, which, in turn, led to an advertising job with pictures on the June 1949 cover of 'Radio-Electronics', sporting the futuristic red 'Man from Mars' pith helmet with built-in radio. Still just fifteen years old, Hope spent the next two years at college in Oregon and New York, then found her first job in television and was subsequently signed by 20th Century-Fox.
After successful screen tests, Lange made her motion picture debut in Bus Stop (1956) (Barbara Eden was one of her competitors for the part) opposite Marilyn Monroe and husband-to-be Don Murray. Even the great Marilyn was said to have felt a little threatened by another blonde who was not only beautiful but five years younger and could act as well. After playing the wife of the titular character in The True Story of Jesse James (1957), a picture which she later referred to as a 'turkey', Lange was cast as the fragile Selena Cross in the melodramatic but good-looking soap opera Peyton Place (1957). This movie was regarded as risqué and controversial at the time, dealing with previously taboo subjects such as rape and incest. For her part of the abused girl, raped by her alcoholic stepfather, whom she finally kills in self-defense, Lange received an Academy Award nomination.
The glossy production values of The Best of Everything (1959), a film about ambitious New York career women working in a magazine publishing house, overshadowed most of the character development. However, Lange (who was billed above the established star Joan Crawford) was dealt with most favorably by the critics. According to Bosley Crowther of The New York Times: "Simply because she has the most to do, and does it gracefully, Miss Lange comes off best' (October 9,1959). The following decade was to be a period of mixed fortunes for Hope Lange.
In 1961, Lange began a long-standing relationship with fellow actor Glenn Ford and left husband Don Murray. Ford, in his dual role of star and associate producer, put pressure on director Frank Capra to cast Lange as the female lead in his next motion picture, the whimsical Damon Runyon-inspired comedy Pocketful of Miracles (1961), even though Shirley Jones had already been assigned to the role. Capra reluctantly gave way, though Hope Lange was likely miscast as the wisecracking showgirl. Lange again co-starred with Ford in the glossy romantic melodrama Love Is a Ball (1963), wherein acting took a back seat to sumptuous costumes and the French Riviera. On the negative side of the ledger, Lange had unsuccessfully auditioned for the part of Maria in West Side Story (1961), which ultimately went to Natalie Wood. Instead, she was cast as Elvis Presley's psychiatrist in Wild in the Country (1961), which was generally panned by critics, except for Variety singling out her performance above the rest as 'intelligent' and 'sensitive'. Lange was also slated to appear as love interest to George Peppard in How the West Was Won (1962), but her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.
Turning increasingly towards television, Hope Lange achieved her most lasting fame as the popular star of the amiable sitcom The Ghost & Mrs. Muir (1968) as a widow who (with two kids and a housekeeper) takes up residence in a quaint cottage also inhabited by the cantankerous ghost of a sea captain (Edward Mulhare). The show ran for three seasons and Lange won two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Continued Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Comedy Series (1969 and 1970). In her only other recurring TV role, she played Dick Van Dyke's wife in The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971), but with less rewarding results. She received good notices for portraying Charles Bronson's dying wife, the victim of the original Death Wish (1974) and its raison d'etre. She then acted primarily on television, with few exceptions, including Blue Velvet (1986) and Clear and Present Danger (1994) as a U.S. senator. In 1977, she replaced Tony Award-winning Ellen Burstyn in the starring role of Doris in 'Same Time, Next Year' on Broadway.
In the early '90s, Lange underwent surgery for a brain tumour. While the operation was successful, her health remained precarious and she limited her screen appearances, retiring altogether in 1998. She died of an intestinal infection in December 2003, aged 70.- Actor
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Born in Cleveland, Morris came to Hollywood in the early 1960s. His acting experience at that time consisted of a few minor roles on the Seattle stage. He found work appearing on Television series such as The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) and The Twilight Zone (1959) before being cast in Mission: Impossible (1966). Morris played quiet, efficient electronics expert Barney Collier from 1966-1973. After the show ended, Morris continued to appear in other Television series and a couple of Television movies. In 1979, he went to Las Vegas to film the television series Vega$ (1978) in which he played Lt. David Nelson. He liked the city so much he decided to stay. This series lasted 2 years. In 1981, Morris survived a serious road accident and did not reappear on television for years. In 1989, he appeared in a short-lived remake of Mission: Impossible (1988). In 1990, he was diagnosed with cancer.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Debralee Scott was born in 1953 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, as the youngest of four daughters born to William Henry Scott, Jr. (March 1, 1914, Scranton, Pennsylvania - September 17, 1993, Scranton, Pennsylvania) and Marion Jones (February 11, 1916, Scranton, Pennsylvania - October 1993, Pittston, Pennsylvania); Debralee's older sisters were producer Carol Ann Scott (later known as Scott Bushnell) and Beverly Hills talent manager Jerilyn Scott, and Ardith Lynn Scott, who had died in infancy. When Scott's sisters were young adults, they relocated from Elizabeth, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California.
Scott was raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where she was a high school cheerleader. In Elizabeth, she worked at a movie theater while she attended a Greek-Latin course at Stroudsburg High School. In 1969, the 16-year-old Scott joined her older sisters in San Francisco; she graduated from Galileo Academy of Science and Technology in 1971 and started acting at the American Conservatory Theater.
Scott's very first acting job was in 1971 as an uncredited extra in "Dirty Harry (1971)"; she played the nude corpse of Ann Mary Deacon, a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped, raped, and buried alive by the Scorpio Killer. Following this, Scott played the girlfriend of Harrison Ford in "American Graffiti (1973)" ("Ain't he neat?" her character says).
In the mid 1970s, Scott relocated to Los Angeles, California, and got an agent. Scott played semi-recurring character Rosalie 'Hotsy' Totsy on Welcome Back, Kotter (1975). At the age of 22, Scott starred in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) as the titular character's younger sister Cathy and reprised the role for the show's sequel Forever Fernwood (1977). After "Forever Fernwood" ended, Scott became a host for celebrity quiz game shows, including The $10,000 Pyramid (1973), Super Password (1984), and Match Game (1973). Scott also acted in Pandemonium (1982) and Police Academy (1984). She was in relationships with Desi Arnaz Jr., Micky Dolenz, Richard Dreyfuss, Jonathan Frakes, Peter P. Lucia Jr., Neal Schon, and Ringo Starr.
In the mid 1990s, Scott became a talent manager for the agency Empowered Artists. On December 15, 1995, she went to the Greenwich Village bar Hogs & Heifers and met her future fiancé, John Dennis Levi, an NYPD officer working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Over time, Scott lived at Levi's house in Brooklyn, New York, with his mother Joanne Priavity. In 2001, while on a cross-country trip, Levi proposed to Scott at a hotel in Winslow, Arizona, and she accepted. They planned to get married in March 2002, but Levi was killed in the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. Heartbroken, Scott became an alcoholic and developed cirrhosis of the liver.
In March 2005, Scott relocated from Brooklyn to Fernandina Beach, Florida, to care for her eldest sister, Carol Ann, who was suffering from emphysema and heart problems. One day, she collapsed and fell into a coma for several days. It was not known what caused the coma. On March 31, 2005, Scott woke up in the hospital, underwent eye surgery, and was released two days later on her birthday, appearing to be fine. Three days later, on April 5, 2005, Scott lay down to take a nap and died in her sleep at the age of 52. An autopsy was performed, but no specific cause of death was listed, and Scott was cremated.- Actor
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A tall, lanky and twinkle-eyed African-American actor with wonderful onscreen charisma, Antonio Fargas has been appearing on stage and screen for nearly 60 years as of 2021. His film debut was in Shirley Clarke's The Cool World (1963), a gritty, uncompromising tale about African-American youth growing up in Harlem, New York. He then made his acting presence felt in many "blaxploitation" films of the early 1970s, including the classic Shaft (1971), the Mafia flick Across 110th Street (1972), the ultra-violent Pam Grier vehicle Foxy Brown (1974) and the classic tale of Huckleberry Finn (1975).
Around this time ABC-TV executives were looking for a capable actor to play the role of golden-hearted street informant "Huggy Bear" on Starsky and Hutch (1975), and Fargas scored the role with which he is most closely identified. His career continued to flourish after "Starsky and Hutch" wrapped up after four years, and he has appeared in over 50 movies to date, many TV shows and numerous stage productions. He has played a 90-year-old witch doctor in "The Great White Hope", was in Melvin Van Peebles' "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death", and appeared in productions of "The Rainmaker", "The Emperor Jones" and "Dream on Monkey Mountain". A strong advocate of the strength and diversity of African-American culture, Fargas holds positions on the boards of Rhode Island's Langston Hughes Center for the Arts and The Martin Luther King Center of Newport.- Actor
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David Nelson was born on October 24, 1936 in New York City to Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson. He attended Hollywood High School. He later was a film producer (The Nelson Co.) and director, who directed several episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952).
Nelson had two sons with his first wife, June Blair. Daniel Blair Nelson was born on August 20, 1962 and James Eric Nelson was born June 8, 1966. After that marriage ended in divorce, he remarried to Yvonne O'Connor Huston in 1975, adopting her three children.
His stepdaughter Teri Nelson Carpenter was once married to game show host Chuck Woolery. His twin nephews Matthew and Gunnar, perform as The Nelsons. Matthew Nelson performs with Red37 and Gunnar Nelson is a radio host. His niece, Tracy Nelson, is an accomplished actress.- Diana Muldaur is known for L.A. Law (1986), Star Trek: The Next Generation, McCloud, Born Free, The Other and McQ. In the eighties, Diana became the president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (the academy handing out the Emmy awards). Diana's L.A. Law character, Rosalind Shays, was a widely discussed character in the nineties. Short after her success with L.A. Law, Diana decided to take a long break from acting.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Carolyn Sue Jones was born in 1930, in Amarillo, Texas, to homemaker Chloe (or Cloe) Jeanette Southern (1906-1979), and Julius Alfred Jones (1897-1979), a barber. Her sister was Bette (later Mrs. Moriarty). Carolyn was an imaginative child, much like her mother; she and her mother shared the same birthday (April 28).
In 1934, her father abandoned the family and her mother moved them in with her own parents, also in Amarillo. As a child, Carolyn suffered from severe asthma. Although she loved movies, she was often too sick to attend, so she listened to her favorites, Danny Kaye and Spike Jones and read as many movie fan magazines as she could. She dreamed of attending the famed Pasadena Playhouse and received many awards at school for speech, poetry, and dramatics. In 1947, she was accepted as a student at the Pasadena Playhouse, and her grandfather agreed to pay for her classes. She worked in summer stock to supplement her income, graduating in 1950.
She gave herself a complete head-to-toe makeover, including painful cosmetic nose surgery to make herself ready for movie roles. Working as an understudy at the Players Ring Theater, she stepped in when the star left to get married. She was seen by a talent scout from Paramount and given a screen test, which went well. She made her first appearance in The Turning Point (1952). She did some other work during her 6-month contract, but when it ended, Paramount, suffering from television's impact, let it lapse. She quipped, "They let me and 16 secretaries go!"
She started working in television but kept busy on stage as well. There, she met a fellow Texan, a young man named Aaron Spelling, and they became a couple. She made a breakthrough in the 3-D movie House of Wax (1953) and garnered excellent reviews. Aaron was still struggling, so he felt he wasn't able to propose to Carolyn; she finally proposed to him. They were married in April 1953. Neither was earning much, but they really enjoyed each other and their life. Many saw them as an ideal couple. She decided against having children as she felt she could not juggle the demands of both a career and a family.
Columbia Pictures saw her and wanted to test her for the part of prostitute Alma Burke in From Here to Eternity (1953), but she got extremely sick with pneumonia and the part went to Donna Reed, nine years older, who won an Academy Award. Jones did, however, achieve success in the science-fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a subtle allegory of the times (McCarthyism). And the famous filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock cast her in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) opposite James Stewart and Doris Day. Meanwhile, Aaron had little success as an actor and Carolyn pushed him to become a writer, even threatening to leave him. She constantly promoted his scripts whenever she could and he was ultimately hired by Dick Powell. Carolyn, meanwhile, was successful once more in The Bachelor Party (1957) (famous line, "Just say you love me--you don't have to mean it!"). For this role, she surprised cast members by dyeing her hair black and cutting it short. This stunning look served her well for a number of roles. For her eight minutes on screen, she received glowing reviews and was nominated for an Academy Award but lost. However, she did win the Golden Globe Award and the Laurel Award for Marjorie Morningstar (1958). She followed this with an impressive appearance in King Creole (1958), generally regarded as Elvis Presley's best film. She then gave arguably her best performance ever in Career (1959), but the film was not commercially successful. She played a serious role in this, leaving the kooky role she might have played to Shirley MacLaine.
As Aaron's career soared, the marriage started to fail. They separated in October 1963 and amicably divorced in August 1965, with Carolyn asking for no alimony. They remained friends. She worked at various roles including two episodes of Burke's Law (1963) for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Soon, she got the part for which she will best be remembered, that of Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (1964). She spent two years in this role. Her costume was designed to copy the cartoon drawings and no doubt inspired such imitators as Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark). The show went head-to-head with The Munsters (1964) and Bewitched (1964).
The show was a hit and she received all the fame she had craved. However, the network decided to cancel the show, despite its success, after only two years. Typecast as Morticia but without the income that a few more years would have provided, she found life difficult and roles few. While acting on the road, she married her voice coach, Herbert Greene, a well-known and respected Broadway conductor and musical director, and they moved together to Palm Springs, California. After seven years, she left him and returned to Hollywood, determined to try to restart her career. She was surprisingly successful and performed in several shows, including Wonder Woman (1975), where she played Hippolyta, the mother of Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and Wonder Girl (Debra Winger). She also appeared in the landmark miniseries Roots (1977). She appeared in four episodes of Fantasy Island (1977) and one episode of The Love Boat (1977), two shows produced by her former husband, Aaron Spelling. In 1979, both of Jones's parents died; her mother from pancreatic cancer. She took on the role of Myrna Clegg on the soap Capitol (1982) from 1982 to 1983, despite having been diagnosed with colon cancer in 1981. She underwent aggressive treatment for the cancer, but it returned during her time on the show and she was told it was terminal.
She played some scenes despite being confined to a wheelchair and working in great pain. Knowing time was short, she married her boyfriend of five years, Peter Bailey-Britton, in September 1982. She died on August 3, 1983, aged 53. She had told her sister Bette that she wanted her epitaph to be "She gave joy to the world." She certainly had many friends who loved her greatly, and many fans who enjoyed her wonderful performances.- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
Randolph Mantooth definitely fit the bill when he made a bankable name for himself in the TV medical series Emergency! (1972) as strong but sensitive paramedic/firefighter "John Gage".
Tall, dark and good-looking, Randy is of Seminole Indian heritage, born in Sacramento, California on September 19, 1945. One of four children born to a construction engineer, his childhood was somewhat physically unsettling in that his father's job career had the family moving frequently from state to state. Randy attended San Marcos High School in the Santa Barbara area of California where he participated in school plays. He received a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York following his studies at Santa Barbara City College.
Randy was discovered in New York by a Universal talent agent after performing the lead in the play "Philadelphia, Here I Come" and returned to California. He slowly built up his resume with work on such dramatic series as Adam-12 (1968), McCloud (1970), Alias Smith and Jones (1971) and Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969). This led to TV stardom on the popular "Emergency!" series in 1972 which ran over five seasons. As a change of pace, he tried comedy and earned series roles on the short-lived Operation Petticoat (1977) and Detective School (1979), as well as pursued the guest star route on episodics. He was also prominently seen in the high-profile mini-series Testimony of Two Men (1977) and The Seekers (1979).
After a career lull in the early 1980s, Randy found a new direction in his career with daytime soaps. He played "Clay Alden" in the soap opera Loving (1983) from 1987 through 1990, then left for personal reasons before returning to the show in 1993, this time in the role of "Alex Masters". The soap was later revamped and entitled The City (1995) but it lasted only two more years.
From there he has regularly appeared on General Hospital (1963), One Life to Live (1968) and As the World Turns (1956), where he has played both good guys and villains. Millennium credits film include featured roles in the romantic comedy It Started with a Kiss (1959), the action thriller Agent Red (2000), the social drama Price to Pay (2006), the romantic thriller He Was a Quiet Man (2007), the action adventure Bold Native (2010) and, his last to date, the horror yarn Killer Holiday (2013). On TV, he has had regular roles on the daytime soap dramas As the World Turns (1956) in 2003-2005 and One Life to Live (1968) in 2007.
Randy has frequently returned to his theater roots in such productions as "Footprints in Blood", "Back to the Blankets", "Wink Dah", "The Independence of Eddie Rose", "The Paper Crown", "The Inuit" and, most recently, "Rain Dance" off-Broadway in 2003.
Divorced from actress Rose Parra, he married actress Kristen Connors in 2002. They were featured together as the ambassador and his wife in the film comedy Scream of the Bikini (2009). Two siblings also got into the business -- actor Don Mantooth and producer Tonya Mantooth.- Tall, dour-faced and slouch-shouldered character actor Abe Vigoda proved himself in both gritty dramatic roles and as an actor with wonderful comedic timing.
Vigoda was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Lena (Moses) and Samuel Vigoda, a tailor -- both Russian Jewish immigrants. His father was a tailor on the Lower East Side. He made his first stage appearance at the age of 17 and plodded away in small theater shows for over 20 years. For the majority of film-goers, Vigoda first came to prominence in The Godfather (1972) as the double-crossing Tessio, pleading to no avail with Robert Duvall to save his life "for old times' sake". Vigoda had roles in a few nondescript TV films before landing the plum role of the dour, unsmiling, urinary tract-tormented Sgt. Phil Fish on the sitcom Barney Miller (1975), his best-known role. The character of Fish proved popular enough to be spun off to his own (albeit short-lived) series, Fish (1977).
With his long, blank, rarely smiling face, he remained in high demand in mafioso-type roles, and for a while in the mid-1980s, he was mistakenly believed to have been dead, leading a producer to remark, "I need an Abe Vigoda type actor", not realizing Vigoda was still alive. The 1990s and beyond became busy again for Vigoda, making appearances in North (1994), The Misery Brothers (1995), A Brooklyn State of Mind (1998), and Crime Spree (2003). He continued acting into his 90s, surprising audiences with his entertaining style.
Vigoda died in his sleep on January 26, 2016, , a month before his 95th birthday, in suburban Woodland Park, New Jersey. He was interred in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York. - Producer
- Actress
- Writer
Jennifer Salt was born on 4 September 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is a producer and actress, known for Sisters (1972), American Horror Story (2011) and Play It Again, Sam (1972). She was previously married to David Greenberg.- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Arthur Godfrey was born in New York City on August 31, 1903. Mr. Godfrey was a radio and TV host and had his own television show The Arthur Godfrey Show, (1948-1959). During his career, he discovered and show cased many new talents including Pat Boone, Julius LaRosa, Marion Marlowe, and many others. Known affectionately as "The Old Redhead," Arthur piloted his own plane and was an early pioneer and promoter of civil aviation. He died in New York City, March 16, 1983.