Valerie Perrine

Happy Birthday to Valerie Perrine! This brash, statuesque former Las Vegas showgirl brought a blowzy sultriness and a sweet vulnerability to a number of starring and supporting roles in the 1970s and 80s. She was born in Galveston, TX. daughter of Kenneth (an army officer) and Winifred (some sources cite first name as Renee; a dancer; maiden name, McGinley) Perrine. Her first film role was a bit part, as a showgirl, in the James Bond film Diamond Are Forever (1971). She played soft-core adult film actress Montana Wildhack in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1972). Perrine was photographed nude for a pictorial layout in the May 1972 issue of Playboy, later appearing on the cover in August 1981. She then became the first actress to appear nude on American television by exposing her breasts during the May 4, 1973, PBS broadcast of Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath on Hollywood Television Theater. Only a few PBS stations nationwide carried the program. Later in 1973, she appeared in the episode "When the Girls Came Out to Play" of the romantic anthology television series Love Story (1973) and starred with Jeff Bridges in The Last American Hero (1973). For her role as Honey Bruce in the 1974 film Lenny, she won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She then co-starred in poorly received W. C. Fields and Me (1976) with Rod Steiger and was in the action comedy Mr. Billion (1977) with Terence Hill and Jackie Gleason. She played Miss Eve Teschmacher, moll of criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, in Superman (1978). For this role, she was nominated for the 1979 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised her role as Miss Teschmacher in Superman II (1980). Perrine played Charlotta Steele, ex-wife of a rodeo champion played by Robert Redford, in The Electric Horseman (1979). Her career grew uneven after an appearance in Can't Stop the Music (1980), for which she was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress. This film has since become a cult classic. In 1982, she played the role of Marcy, the wife of a corrupt police officer, in The Border with Jack Nicholson. In 1986, she starred in the short lived CBS comedy series Leo & Liz in Beverly Hills with Harvey Korman and was in Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre in 1985. Her subsequent films include Maid to Order (1987) with Ally Sheedy, Boiling Point (1993) with Wesley Snipes, Curtain Call (1998) with Michael Caine and Maggie Smith, What Women Want (2000) with Mel Gibson and Delta Burke, The Amateurs (2005) with Jeff Bridges and her last film Silver Skies (2016) with George Hamilton. On TV, she was in the miniseries Malibu (1983) with Kim Novak, James Coburn and Richard Mulligan and the TV movie Sweet Bird of Youth (1989) with Elizabeth Taylor and Mark Harmon. She has been a guest star on such series as Northern Exposure, Burke's Law, Homicide: Life on the Street, ER, Nash Bridges, The Practice, Walker, Texas Ranger, Just Shoot Me!, Grounded for Life and Third Watch. she also played Dolores Pierce on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns (1998-99). She now suffers from a severe case of Parkinson's disease. Brain surgery to stop the shaking was unsuccessful. Medication she took to manage her Parkinson's made her teeth so brittle that they were falling out. Unable to eat solid foods, she was also malnourished. Beverly Hills periodontist Sanda Moldovan used implants to permanently replace her upper teeth. A Go Fund Me page was set up help her pay the ever increasing medical bills. She was once quoted as saying " I don't know anything about Chavanasky, or whatever you call him. I really don't think about anything until I get on the set." Valerie, an award-winning documentary that offers an intimate, authentic look at the legacy and impact of her life. The film, which legendary actor Michael Caine calls "brilliant," was considered for a 2021 Oscar nomination by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.