Barra Grant

Last updated
Barra Grant
Born
Barbara Carol Wayne

New York City, U.S.
Education Bryn Mawr College
Barnard College
Occupation(s)Actress, director, screenwriter
Spouse
Brian Reilly
(m. 1982;died 2011)
Parent

Barra Grant (born Barbara Carol Wayne) is an American actress, screenwriter, film director and playwright.

Contents

Biography

Grant was born Barbara Carol Wayne in New York City, the daughter of Allan Wayne, a doll company executive, and Bess Myerson, Miss America 1945. Her parents divorced in 1958 due to her father's abuse. [1] She became Barra Grant when her mother married Arnold Grant and he adopted her in 1962. [2] She was educated at the Birch Wathen Lenox School, Bryn Mawr College, and Barnard College. She also went to London for three years to study acting. [3]

Grant began an acting career in the early 1970s, appearing on television and in film. One of her first roles was as Lulie in the BBC series Take Three Girls . While acting at The Mark Taper she was inspired to start writing. [4] In 1978, she wrote and appeared in the film Slow Dancing in the Big City . She began her directing career with an episode of NBC Special Treat titled "The Tap Dance Kid", based on a novel by Louise Fitzhugh.

Grant was married to writer and producer Brian Reilly until his death in 2011. [1] [5]

Filmography

Film

YearTitleDirectorWriter
1978 Slow Dancing in the Big City NoYes
1984 Misunderstood NoYes
2005 Life of the Party YesYes
2009 Love Hurts YesYes

Acting roles

YearTitleRole
1972 Daughters of Satan Chris Robertson
It Ain't Easy Ann
1976 Mother, Jugs & Speed Miss Crocker
1978 Slow Dancing in the Big City Mildred

Television

YearTitleDirectorWriterNotes
1978 Special Treat YesYesEpisode "The Tap Dance Kid"
1987 CBS Summer Playhouse NoYesEpisode "Mabel and Max"
1989 Dirty Dancing YesNoEpisode "Hit the Road"
1990 The Earth Day Special NoYesTV special
1991 CBS Schoolbreak Special YesYesEpisode "Lies of the Heart"
1992 Freshman Dorm NoYesEpisode "The Last Sonnet"
1994 Living Single NoYesEpisode "U.N.I.T.Y. (a.k.a. Five Card Stud)";
Also executive consultant of 7 episodes

Acting roles

YearTitleRoleNotes
1971 Take Three Girls LulieMain role
Sarge Christina"A Terminal Case of Vengeance"
1972 The Mary Tyler Moore Show Judy Conrad"The Courtship of Mary's Father's Daughter"
1973 The Bold Ones: The New Doctors Eve Tanner"Tightrope to Tomorrow"
Love, American Style Boni"Love and the Baby Derby"
Gunsmoke Teresa"The Widowmaker"
Barnaby Jones Marie Hubble"Stand-In for Death"
1974 Trapped Beneath the Sea Grace WallantsTV film
Roll, Freddy, Roll! Sidni Kane
1975 Let's Switch! Morgan Ames
1976 Good Heavens Kiki"Coffee, Tea, or Gloria"
Serpico Marilyn"The Country Boy"
1977 The Sunshine Boys Sylvia GrantTV film
1978Sergeant Matlovich vs. the U.S. Air ForceSusan Hewman

Stage plays

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Burnett</span> American comedian and actress (born 1933)

Carol Creighton Burnett is an American comedian, actress, and singer. Her comedy-variety show The Carol Burnett Show, which originally aired on CBS, was one of the first to be hosted by a woman. She has performed on Broadway, on television, and in film of varying genres, including dramatic and comedic roles. She has received numerous accolades, including seven Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and seven Golden Globe Awards. Burnett was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2013, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ZaSu Pitts</span> American actress (1894–1963)

ZaSu Pitts was an American actress whose career spanned nearly five decades, starring in many silent film dramas, including Erich von Stroheim's 1924 epic Greed, and comedies, before transitioning successfully to mostly comedy roles with the advent of sound films. She also appeared on numerous radio shows and, later, made her mark on television. She was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 at 6554 Hollywood Blvd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bess Myerson</span> American actress (1924-2014)

Bess Myerson was an American politician, model, and television actress who in 1945 became the first Miss America who was Jewish. Her achievement, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, was seen as an affirmation of the Jewish place in American life. She was a heroine to parts of the Jewish community, where "she was the most famous pretty girl since Queen Esther."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Miles Minter</span> American actress (1902–1984)

Mary Miles Minter was an American actress, and one of the leading ladies who established the early Hollywood star system. She appeared in 53 silent films from 1912 to 1923.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Eden</span> American actress (born 1931)

Barbara Eden is an American actress who starred as Jeannie in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970). Her other roles included Roslyn Pierce opposite Elvis Presley in Flaming Star (1960), Lieutenant jg Cathy Connors in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961), and a single widowed mother, Stella Johnson, in the film Harper Valley PTA (1978). Due to the success of the film, Eden reprised her role as Stella Johnson in a two-season television series, Harper Valley PTA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly Curtis</span> American actress

Kelly Lee Curtis is an American actress. She is known for her roles in Magic Sticks (1987), and The Devil's Daughter (1991).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">June Lockhart</span> American actress (born 1925)

June Lockhart is an American retired actress, beginning a film career in the 1930s and 1940s in such films as A Christmas Carol and Meet Me in St. Louis. She primarily acted in 1950s and 1960s television, and with performances on stage and in film. On two television series, Lassie and Lost in Space, she played mother roles. She also portrayed Dr. Janet Craig on the CBS television sitcom Petticoat Junction (1968–70). She is a two-time Emmy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner. With a career spanning nearly 90 years, she is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Borstein</span> American actress (born 1971)

Alexandrea Borstein is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. She is best known for voicing Lois Griffin in the animated comedy series Family Guy (1999–present), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award. She gained further acclaim for starring as Susie Myerson in the comedy-drama series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017–2023), which earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beth Grant</span> American actress (born 1949)

Beth Grant is an American character actress. Between 2012 and 2017, she was a series regular on the television comedy The Mindy Project in the role of Beverly Janoszewski. She is also known for her role as Gracie Leigh in the CBS post-apocalyptic drama Jericho and as Marianne Marie Beetle in Wonderfalls. She has also appeared on Pushing Daisies, and Mockingbird Lane.

The Miss New York scholarship competition selects the representative for the state of New York in the Miss America scholarship competition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lois Smith</span> American actress

Lois Arlene Smith is an American character actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol Ohmart</span> American actress and model

Armelia Carol Ohmart, known professionally as Carol Ohmart, was an American actress and former model who appeared in numerous films and television series from the early 1950s until the 1970s. Over the duration of her career, she would appear in several notable horror and film noirs, including lead roles in The Wild Party (1956) and William Castle's House on Haunted Hill (1959).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evalyn Knapp</span> American actress (1906–1981)

Evalyn Knapp was an American film actress of the late 1920s, 1930s and into the 1940s. She was a leading B-movie serial actress in the 1930s. She was the younger sister of the orchestra leader Orville Knapp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoe Kazan</span> American actress (born 1983)

Zoe Swicord Kazan is an American actress, playwright, and screenwriter. She made her acting debut in the film Swordswallowers and Thin Men (2003) and later acted in films such as The Savages (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), and It's Complicated (2009). She starred in Happythankyoumoreplease (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010), Ruby Sparks (2012), What If (2013), The Big Sick (2017), The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), and She Said (2021). She also wrote Ruby Sparks and co-wrote Wildlife (2018) with her partner Paul Dano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Williams</span> American singer, actress and former Miss America (born 1963)

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American singer, actress, model, producer, and dancer. She gained recognition as the first African-American woman to receive the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984, but resigned her title amid a media controversy surrounding nude photographs of her being published in Penthouse magazine. Thirty-two years later, Williams was offered a public apology during the Miss America 2016 pageant for the events.

Carl Andrew "Andy" Capasso was a sewer contractor, who was convicted of tax fraud. He was later accused of bribing judge Hortense Gabel by arranging, for the judge's daughter Sukhreet Gabel, a job with Bess Myerson. Myerson was indicted and resigned her positions with the City of New York, but was ultimately acquitted. The scandal was the subject of When She Was Bad, a book by Shana Alexander published in 1991.

<i>Poor Little Rich Girl</i> (1936 film) 1936 US musical film directed by Irving Cummings

Poor Little Rich Girl, advertised as The Poor Little Rich Girl, is a 1936 American musical film directed by Irving Cummings and starring Shirley Temple, Alice Faye and Jack Haley. The screenplay by Sam Hellman, Gladys Lehman, and Harry Tugend was based on stories by Eleanor Gates and Ralph Spence, and the 1917 Mary Pickford vehicle of the same name. The film focuses on a child (Temple) neglected by her rich and busy father. She meets two vaudeville performers and becomes a radio singing star. The film received a lukewarm critical reception from The New York Times.

Miss America 1945, the 19th Miss America pageant, was held at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey on September 8, 1945. Two days prior to the actual selection and coronation, the night of the talent competition, the Army Air Force Veterans voted the eventual winner, Miss New York City as their favorite beauty queen.

<i>August: Osage County</i> (film) 2013 American drama film directed by John Wells

August: Osage County is a 2013 American tragicomedy film directed by John Wells. It was written by Tracy Letts and based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2007 play of the same name. It is produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Jean Doumanian, and Steve Traxler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mickey Sumner</span> English actress

Brigitte Michael "Mickey" Sumner is an English actress best known for her film roles as Sophie Levee in Frances Ha (2012) and Farrah in The Mend (2014) and her television roles as Katia on Low Winter Sun (2013) and Bess Till on Snowpiercer (2020). She also portrayed Patti Smith in CBGB (2013).

References

  1. 1 2 Morrisroe, Patricia (March 30, 1987). "Bess and the Mess". New York Magazine . Retrieved August 25, 2021.
  2. Jewish Women's Archive: Bess Myerson http://jwa.org Retrieved on December 30, 2010.
  3. Taylor, Angela (November 12, 1977). "Famous Mother's Daughter Creates Her Own Image". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved July 24, 2020.
  4. "Film Interview: Barbara Grant". Archived from the original on July 8, 2011.
  5. Barnes, Mike (September 5, 2011), "'Santa Clause' Producer Brian Reilly Dies at 65", The Hollywood Reporter , retrieved August 26, 2021
  6. "Barra Grant" The New Yorker Magazine Retrieved on December 30, 2010.
  7. Wilker, Deborah (June 11, 2018). ""The Bess Mess": How a 1940s Beauty Queen Inspired 'Miss America's Ugly Daughter'". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
  8. MISS AMERICA'S UGLY DAUGHTER Returns to Greenway Court Theatre (January 8, 2019)