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Suzanne Pleshette, the husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart's sardonic wife, Emily, on television's long-running "The Bob Newhart Show," has died at age 70.
Pleshette, whose career included roles in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and in Broadway plays including "The Miracle Worker," died of respiratory failure Saturday evening at her Los Angeles home, said her attorney Robert Finkelstein, also a family friend.
Pleshette underwent chemotherapy for lung cancer in 2006. "The Bob Newhart Show, a hit throughout its six-year run, starred comedian Newhart as a Chicago psychiatrist surrounded by eccentric patients. Pleshette provided the voice of reason.
Four years after the show ended in 1978, Newhart went on to the equally successful "Newhart" series in which he was the proprietor of a New England inn populated by more eccentrics. When that show ended in 1990, Pleshette reprised her role - from the first show - in one of the most clever final episodes in TV history.
It had Newhart waking up in the bedroom of his "The Bob Newhart Show" home with Pleshette at his side. He went on to tell her of the crazy dream he'd just had of running an inn filled with eccentrics.
"If I'm in Timbuktu, I'll fly home to do that," Pleshette said of her reaction when Newhart told her how he was thinking of ending the show.
Born Jan. 31, 1937, in New York City, Pleshette began her career as a stage actress after attending the city's High School of the Performing Arts and studying at its Neighborhood Playhouse. She was often picked for roles because of her beauty and her throaty voice.
"When I was 4," she told an interviewer in 1994, "I was answering the phone, and (the callers) thought I was my father. So I often got quirky roles because I was never the conventional ingenue."
She met her future husband, Tom Poston, when they appeared together in the 1959 Broadway comedy "The Golden Fleecing," but didn't marry him until more than 40 years later.
Although the two had a brief fling, they went on to marry others. By 2000 both were widowed and they got back together, marrying the following year.
"He was such a wonderful man. He had fun every day of his life," Pleshette said after Poston died in April 2007.
Among her other Broadway roles was replacing Anne Bancroft in "The Miracle Worker," the 1959 drama about Helen Keller, in New York and on the road.
Meanwhile, she had launched her film career with Jerry Lewis in 1958 in "The Geisha Boy." She went on to appear in numerous television shows, including "Have Gun, Will Travel,""Alfred Hitchcock Presents,""Playhouse 90" and "Naked City."
By the early 1960s, Pleshette attracted a teenage following with her youthful roles in such films as "Rome Adventure,""Fate Is the Hunter,""Youngblood Hawke" and "A Distant Trumpet."
She married fellow teen favorite Troy Donahue, her co-star in "Rome Adventure," in 1964 but the union lasted less than a year. She was married to Texas oilman Tim Gallagher from 1968 until his death in 2000.
Pleshette matured in such films as Hitchcock's "The Birds" and the Disney comedies "The Ugly Dachshund,""Blackbeard's Ghost" and "The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin." Over the years, she also had a busy career in TV movies, including playing the title role in 1990's "Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean."
More recently, she appeared in several episodes of the TV sitcoms "Will & Grace" and "8 Simple Rules ... For Dating My Teenage Daughter."
In a 1999 interview, Pleshette observed that being an actress was more important than being a star.
"I'm an actress, and that's why I'm still here," she said. "Anybody who has the illusion that you can have a career as long as I have and be a star is kidding themselves."
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Added: 20th January 2008
Views: 376
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Posted By: Sophia |
 
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France's Suzanne Lenglen was pretty much invincible in women's tennis in the 1920s, losing only one match of significance in singles from 1914 through 1926. She ruled the sport when the major tournaments were amatuer events only. This photo of Lenglen was taken at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Considered a sex symbol in her heyday, Lenglen turned professional after 1926 and played a series of exhibition matches in the United States that didn't draw very good crowds because Lenglen so outclassed her competition. She died of leukemia in 1938 when she was only 39 years old.
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Added: 20th February 2008
Views: 143
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Sultry Suzan Ball, a distant cousin of Lucille Ball, was a starlet in the early 1950s under contract to Universal. While filming East of Sumatra (1953; with Jeff Chandler), Ball injured her right leg, which was later found to be cancerous. Her leg was eventually amputated below the knee. By 1955, the cancer had spread to her lungs, and she passed away in August 1955 at the age of 22. Ball married actor Richard Long in 1954, leaving him a widower just a year later.
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Added: 22nd April 2008
Views: 172
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Posted By: Old Fart |
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The Partridge Family appeared on the cover of TV Guide in 1970. This is a cast photo from the show's first season. The boy on the left, Jeremy Gelbwaks (who played Chris), was replaced after one season by Brian Forster. (Danny Bonaduce described Gelbwaks as 'psychotic.') Suzanne Crough, who played Tracy, the young daughter, is shown with her normal facial expression--a scowl. Didn't this kid ever smile?
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Partridge
Family
TV
Guide
Added: 16th September 2008
Views: 90
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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