Diane Roter

Last updated

Diane Roter
Born
Danielle Roter

(1948-05-26) May 26, 1948 (age 74)
Brussels, Belgium
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Actress, teacher, journalist
Years active1959–present

Diane Roter is an American actress best known for her appearances in the long-running TV Western The Virginian in its fourth season, which ran from 1965 to 1966. She then appeared in an episode of Laredo , which was a spin-off from The Virginian series in 1966 and later appeared in an episode of the TV show Family Affair in 1969. She is also known as Danielle Roter and made appearances in television and film from 1959 until 1970. She currently is a professional writer, actor, director, critic, and arts journalist. She is a certified teaching artist. She has also worked as an editor, computer tutor, algebra teacher, writing and performance coach, and political organizer. She is as also known as Dani Roter.

Contents

Early life

Her native language is French. Her family, Holocaust survivors of Jewish descent, immigrated from postwar Europe to the United States. She learned English as a child. Her family is closely associated with theater and acting, so they settled in California close to Hollywood. Her family founded the Santa Monica Playhouse in the early 1960s. She sharpened her innate talent in acting with the Stanislavsky method as a youth. Her first appearance on television was at age 10 on the General Electric Theater in 1959. She appeared with Charles Laughton. She later appeared on the Dick Powell Show in 1962. She appeared on this show with her brother, Robert. Her first stage performance was in William Saroyan's My Heart's in The Highlands at age 10. She won critical acclaim for her performance as the Student in Eugène Ionesco’s The Lesson at age 14. From the early '60s until her casting on The Virginian in 1965, she worked to improve her acting skills through the theater.

The Virginian

On The Virginian, she played the character of Jennifer Sommers, Judge Henry Garth's (Lee J. Cobb) niece. She joined the show taking the place of Betsy Garth (Roberta Shore), who left the show in the previous season. Her time in the TV series was cut short when Lee J. Cobb left the series before his contract was completed in the middle of the fourth season. Jennifer Sommers' character was independent, confident, and sharing, and she helped others in her day-to-day activities. She was left "home alone" many times as Judge Garth made business trips preparing to become the new Wyoming Territory governor. Other cast members of The Virginian with whom she appeared were James Drury, Doug McClure, Clu Gulager, and Randy Boone.

Awards

She won the Bronze Wrangler award from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in 1966 for her acting in the episode titled "The Horse Fighter".

Television filmography

On The Virginian these fourth-season episodes were the ones in which she had a significant role:

Diane Roter as "Jennifer Sommers" in The Virginian TV Series
DateSeasonEpisodeEpisode name
November 3, 196547"Jennifer"
November 10, 196548"Nobility of Kings"
December 1, 1965411"The Dream of Stavros Karas"
December 15, 1965413"The Horse Fighter"
December 22, 1965414"Letter of the Law"
January 5, 1966416"Nobody Said Hello"
January 26, 1966419"Chaff in the Wind"
February 2, 1966420"The Inchworms Got No Wings at All"
February 9, 1966421"Morgan Starr"
March 30, 1966427"That Saunders Woman"
April 20, 1966430"Mark of a Man"
Television filmography
ShowDateSeasonEpisodeEpisode name
Laredo September 23, 196622"The Dance of the Laughing Death"
Family Affair April 7, 1969327"Flower Power"
General Electric Theater February 8, 1959719"The Last Lesson"
Dick Powell Show October 30, 196226"The Great Anatole"
Hondo October 13, 196716"Hondo and the Apache Kid"
The Rat Patrol February 19, 1968222"The Double Jeopardy Raid"

After television

After her appearances in television, she trained with Marcel Marceau in Paris and performed as a mime at the Mark Taper Forum. She has taught mime and movement, as well as acting and writing, in private classes and in schools. She taught algebra to adults at Los Angeles Valley College and earned a bachelor of arts in biopsychology from UCLA, and was honored with a research training award. She has been published in journalism and art criticism in the Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News, The Daily News, LA Weekly, and The Advocate.

She joined her fellow cast members from The Virginian for their 50th-anniversary celebration at the Memphis Film Festival on May 31, 2012. The event was held south of Memphis in Olive Branch, MS. She appeared with James Drury, Gary Clarke, L.Q. Jones, Roberta Shore, Randy Boone, Sara Lane, and Don Quine.

She joined her fellow cast members at a second 50th-anniversary celebration in Kanab, Utah, at the Western Legends Roundup on August 16, 2012. She appeared with Drury, Clarke, Sara Lane, and Quine.

She attended a third 50th-anniversary celebration with Drury, Clarke, Jones, Roberta Shore, Boone, Clu Gulager, Sara Lane, and Quine in Los Angeles, at the Autry National Center and Museum on September 22, 2012. On this same date, The Virginian began a three-year agreement to run on the Inspiration Network cable channel.

Cozi TV, the NBCUniversal classic-television digital-specialty network, began airing episodes in 2013. MeTV airs episodes in selected viewing areas. She appeared as a guest star at the Roy Rogers Festival in Portsmouth, Ohio, on July 31, 2013, with fellow Virginian cast member Don Quine and actress and singer Lainie Kazan.

She attended as a guest star, the Cowboy Up for Vets Horse Show with fellow Virginian cast members Drury, Shore, Clarke, Boone, Gulager, Lane, and Quine. The show was held on March 28, 2014, in Swanton, Ohio. She took part in a special celebration of James Drury's 80th birthday at the show.

She attended as guest star, the largest cast reunion of The Virginian assembled at the Cowboy Up for Vets Horse Show held on April 22–24, 2016, in Swanton. Other cast members who attended were Drury, Shore, Clarke, Jones, Boone, Gulager, Lane, Quine, and Joe Cannon.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennie Garth</span> American actress (born 1972)

Jennifer Eve Garth is an American actress. She is known for starring as Kelly Taylor throughout the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise and Val Tyler on the sitcom What I Like About You (2002–06). In 2012, she starred in her own reality show, Jennie Garth: A Little Bit Country on CMT. Her memoir titled Deep Thoughts From a Hollywood Blonde was published by New American Library on April 1, 2014.

<i>The Virginian</i> (TV series) Television series

The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury in the title role, along with Doug McClure, Lee J. Cobb, and others. It originally aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971, for a total of 249 episodes. Drury had played the same role in 1958, in an unsuccessful pilot that became an episode of the NBC summer series Decision. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute Western series. Cobb left the series after four seasons, and was replaced over the years by mature character actors John Dehner, Charles Bickford, John McIntire, and Stewart Granger, all portraying different characters. It was set before Wyoming became a state in 1890, as mentioned several times as Wyoming Territory, although other references set it later, around 1898.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Lansing (actor)</span> American actor (1928-1994)

Robert Lansing was an American stage, film, and television actor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clu Gulager</span> American actor (1928–2022)

William Martin Gulager, better known as Clu Gulager, was an American television and film actor and director born in Holdenville, Oklahoma. He first became known for his work in television, appearing in the co-starring role of William H. Bonney in the 1960–1962 NBC television series The Tall Man and as Emmett Ryker in another NBC Western series, The Virginian. He later had a second career as a horror film actor, including a lead part in Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead (1985). He also was in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985). In 2005 he started acting in his son's horror films — the Feasts films and Piranha 3DD — in his 80s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doug McClure</span> American actor (1935–1995)

Douglas Osborne McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. He is best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1971 of the series The Virginian and mayor turned police chief Kyle Applegate on Out of this World.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margi Clarke</span> English actress

Margi Clarke is an English actress and radio and television presenter. She had a leading role in the film Letter to Brezhnev (1985), a low-budget film which had an international release. Later, Clarke played Jackie Dobbs in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Salmi</span> American actor (1928–1990)

Albert Salmi was an American actor of stage, film, and television. Best known for his work as a character actor, he appeared in over 150 film and television productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Fuller (actor)</span> American actor

Robert Fuller is an American horse rancher and retired actor. He began his career on television, guest-starring primarily on Western programs, while appearing in several movies, including: The Brain from Planet Arous; Teenage Thunder ; Return of the Seven (1966); Incident at Phantom Hill (1969); and The Hard Ride (1971). In his five decades of television, Fuller was known for his deep, raspy voice and was familiar to television viewers throughout the 1960s from his co-star roles on the popular 1960s Western series, as Jess Harper, former gunslinger, on Laramie and Cooper Smith on Wagon Train, and was also well known for his starring role as Dr. Kelly Brackett in the 1970s medical/action drama Emergency!

Miriam Byrd-Nethery was an American actress. Her film roles included Bound for Glory (1976) and Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Across Five Aprils.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeanette Nolan</span> American actress (1911–1998)

Jeanette Nolan was an American actress. Nominated for four Emmy Awards, she had roles in the television series The Virginian (1962–1971) and Dirty Sally (1974), and in films such as Macbeth (1948).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberta Shore</span> American actress (born 1943)

Roberta Jymme Schourop, better known as Roberta Shore, is a retired American actress and performer. She is notable for her roles in the original Shaggy Dog film and as Betsy Garth on the Western television series The Virginian. A devout Mormon, Shore broke her contract to focus on her marriage and family, retiring at the age of 22. She lives in Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Drury</span> American actor (1934–2020)

James Child Drury Jr. was an American actor. He is best known for having played the title role in the 90-minute weekly Western television series The Virginian, which was broadcast on NBC from 1962 to 1971.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pippa Scott</span> American actress (born 1935)

Philippa Scott is an American actress who has appeared in film and television since the 1950s.

<i>The Tall Man</i> (TV series) American TV series or program

The Tall Man is a half-hour American western television series about Sheriff Pat Garrett and gunfighter Billy the Kid that aired on NBC from September 10, 1960, to September 1, 1962, filmed by Revue Productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Clarke</span> American actor

Gary Clarke is an American actor best known for his role as Steve Hill in the NBC western television series The Virginian with James Drury and Doug McClure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Vinson</span> American actor

Gary Vinson was an American actor who appeared in significant roles in three television series of the 1960s: The Roaring 20s, McHale's Navy, and Pistols 'n' Petticoats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Field</span> American actress (1922–2011)

Margaret Field was an American film actress usually billed as Maggie Mahoney after her marriage to actor Jock Mahoney. The mother of actress Sally Field, she was best known for her work in two science-fiction films, The Man from Planet X (1951) and Captive Women (1952) and played dozens of roles in various television series.

<i>Skyward</i> (film) American TV series or program

Skyward is a 1980 American made-for-television drama film starring Bette Davis, Howard Hesseman, Marion Ross, Suzy Gilstrap, Clu Gulager and Lisa Whelchel. It was directed by Ron Howard, written by Nancy Sackett and broadcast on NBC on November 20, 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roberta Colindrez</span> Mexican-American actor and writer

Roberta Colindrez is a Mexican-American actor and writer known for originating the role of Joan in the musical Fun Home. Colindrez is also known for roles in the TV shows I Love Dick,Vida, and Amazon Prime's A League of Their Own.

Olive Sturgess is a Canadian former actress who worked in films, television shows, and theatre in the 1950s and 1960s. Her parents were Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Sturgess. Leonard hosted his own radio show. She came to Hollywood in 1954.