JOANNA CASSIDY Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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JOANNA CASSIDY

Name: Joanna Cassidy                                                                         
Born: 2 August 1945 Haddonfield, New Jersey                                                 
                                                                                             
Joanna Cassidy (born August 2, 1945) is an American actress who has been active             
in film and television much of her career.                                                   
                                                                                             
Cassidy was born Joanna Virginia Caskey in Haddonfield, New Jersey. She got her             
start guest starring on television series such as Mission: Impossible, Falcon               
Crest, Starsky & Hutch and Fantasy Island, as well as having starring roles on               
programs such as 240-Robert, Buffalo Bill, and Dallas.                                       
                                                                                             
In 1982, she had her first major feature film role as the replicant Zhora in                 
Blade Runner. The following year, she co-starred in Under Fire with Gene                     
Hackman and Nick Nolte. She was also featured in such films as Hollywood Wives (1985),       
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Package (1989), Don't Tell Mom the                       
Babysitter's Dead (1991), Barbarians at the Gate (1993), the 1993 adaptation of             
Stephen King's The Tommyknockers and Wes Craven's Vampire in Brooklyn (1995).               
                                                                                             
On television, Cassidy provided the voice of Maggie Sawyer in the 1990s animated             
version of Superman, and had recurring guest roles on shows such as Diagnosis               
Murder and The District. She guest starred on Star Trek: Enterprise as T'Les,               
the mother of T'Pol. She also voiced the villain Hecubah in the computer game               
Nox. Cassidy appeared opposite James Garner, playing his ex-wife, in the 1994               
television movie The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A.                                       
                                                                                             
She was in the 2001 film Ghosts of Mars made by John Carpenter. In Boston Legal             
season two, she played Beverly Bridge opposite William Shatner as Denny Crane's             
fiancee.                                                                                     
                                                                                             
One of the actress's best-known recent roles came as Margaret Chenowith on Six               
Feet Under. Her husband was played by Robert Foxworth, with whom she also acted             
in episodes of both Falcon Crest and Star Trek: Enterprise. Cassidy earned an               
Emmy nomination for this role in 2006.                                                       
                                                                                             
She was in an unsettling "Smokey the Bear" public-service commercial in 1973.               
Advising people to be extra careful in the forest, she removes a mask, revealing             
her to be "Smokey" in disguise. She says, "If you knew it was me, would you have             
listened?"                                                                                   
                                                                                             
In the spring of 2007, Cassidy donned Zhora's costume once more, 25 years after             
the release of Blade Runner, in order to recreate a climactic scene from the                 
film for the fall 2007 Final Cut release of the film. In the original release,               
a stunt performer played out Zhora's death scene, with the physical differences             
between the performer and Cassidy very evident (including the stuntperson                   
wearing a different wig). For the Final Cut, Cassidy's head was digitally                   
transposed onto footage of the stunt performer, making the death scene fit                   
continuity. According to the DVD featurette All Our Variant Futures, it was                 
Cassidy herself who suggested this be done; she is captured on video making the             
suggestion during filming of a retrospective interview related to Blade Runner.             
                                                                                             
In the second season of the NBC series Heroes, she is seen in a photo of the 12             
senior members of the show's mysterious company. Beyond appearances in                       
photographs, the actress first appeared as Victoria Pratt in the 10th episode of             
season two, "Truth & Consequences", during which her character was killed off.