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Sally Struthers

 
Quotes By: Sally Struthers

Quotes:

"If a man is pictured chopping off a woman's breast, it only gets a R rating, but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman's breast, it gets an X rating. Why is violence more acceptable than tenderness?"

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Actor: Sally Struthers
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  • Born: Jul 28, 1948 in Portland, Oregon
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '70s, 2000s
  • Major Genres: Comedy
  • Career Highlights: Five Easy Pieces, The Getaway, Marie Osmond's Merry Christmas
  • First Major Screen Credit: Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Biography

The daughter of a Portland doctor, Sally Ann Struthers left home at 18, determined to become a star. The 5' 1", frizzy-haired Ms. Struthers attended classes at the Pasadena Playhouse, then worked as a singer, dancer and commercial actress before the breaks began arriving in rapid succession in 1970. By the end of that year, she had been seen on TV as a comedy-ensemble player on The Smothers Brother Comedy Hour and a chorus girl (in fact, the only chorus girl) on The Tim Conway Comedy Hour; she'd played a small but attention-grabbing role in the Jack Nicholson film Five Easy Pieces; and she'd provided the voice for Pebbles Flintstone on the animated Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show. Oh, before we forget: also in 1970, Struthers was cast as Gloria Bunker Stivic on the groundbreaking TV sitcom All in the Family. During her seven-season stint as Gloria, she shared a 1972 "Best Supporting Actress" Emmy with The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Valerie Harper. She also took time out to deliver an image-busting performance as the sluttish wife of kidnap victim Jack Dodson in Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway (1972), and to star in such made-for-TV films as Aloha Means Goodbye (1974), Hey, I'm Alive (1975) and The Great Houdinis (1976). In 1975, Struthers very nearly walked off All in the Family over a much-publicized salary dispute; she left the series when her contract ended in 1978, returning briefly to appear in an episode titled "California Here We Are"--and winning a second Emmy as a result. Though big things were predicted for Struthers, her post-Family years were rough. Her TV-movie appearances began playing to ever-diminishing ratings, while her highly touted 1981 Broadway debut in Wally's Café was a bust. It was a frightened, insecure Sally Struthers who returned to series television in 1982 as the star of Gloria, an All in the Family spin-off which recast the actress in the role that made her famous. Despite initially good ratings, Gloria tanked after a year. After another foredoomed Broadway appearance in a female version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, Sally accepted the role of klutzy divorcee Marsha McMurray Shrimpton in the 1986 syndicated sitcom 9 to 5. Around this same time, Struthers began showing up as the TV spokesperson for a charitable organization serving malnourished Third-World children. While none could doubt the actress' sincerity, her strident, lachrymose fund-raising appeals were treated with merciless derision by the many sketch-comedy TV series of the period. Though her career may never again reach the heights of her All in the Family days, Sally Struthers has kept busy in a variety of show-business ventures, including voiceover assignments on such series as Talespin and Dinosaurs, and a recent touring production of the musical Grease, in which she co-starred with another TV favorite of yore, The Monkees' Davy Jones. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Wikipedia: Sally Struthers
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Sally Struthers

Sally Struthers at the Filmex Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor, November 1981
Born Sally Ann Struthers
July 28, 1948 (1948-07-28) (age 61)
Portland, Oregon,
United States
Occupation Actress/Spokeswoman
Years active 1970–present
Spouse(s) Dr. William Rader (1977-1983)

Sally Ann Struthers (born July 28, 1948) is an American actress and spokeswoman, known for her roles in sitcoms and television, particularly that of Gloria Bunker Stivic, the daughter of Archie and Edith Bunker (played by Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton respectively) on All in the Family, for which she won two Emmy awards. She is also known for playing Babette on Gilmore Girls.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Struthers was born in Portland, Oregon. The daughter of Margaret Caroline (née Jernes) and Robert Alden Struthers, who was a surgeon.[1] Her maternal grandparents were Norwegian immigrants and her father was of Scottish descent.[2] She attended Grant High School. Struthers married Dr. William C. Rader, a psychiatrist, on December 18, 1977. Now divorced (as of January 19, 1983), they had one child together, Samantha Struthers Rader.

Career

In Five Easy Pieces (1970), she participated in a nude sex scene with Jack Nicholson but first achieved real fame as Gloria Bunker Stivic on the 1970s sitcom, All in the Family. Producer Norman Lear found the actress dancing on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a counterculture variety show whose writing staff included Rob Reiner. According to a WPTT-AM radio interview with Doug Hoerth in 2003, Struthers thought that Reiner's then-fiancée and later wife, Penny Marshall, would get the role of Gloria, as Marshall resembled Jean Stapleton, who played Edith Bunker. Actually, actress Candace Azzara played the role of Gloria in a pilot episode but was then dropped.[citation needed]

After a shaky start, word of mouth propelled the program to the top of the Nielsen Ratings heap, giving tens of millions of viewers the chance to see "Gloria" defending her liberal viewpoints about negative stereotypes and inequality. Struthers won two Emmy Awards (in 1972 and 1979) for her work in All in the Family. Struthers also reprised her role of Gloria on the short-lived All in the Family spin-off Gloria (1982-1983). In 2001, Struthers attended the funeral of Carroll O'Connor, along with other actors from the show.

Struthers was a semi-regular panelist on the 1990 revival of Match Game. She also was an occasional celebrity guest on Win, Lose or Draw, even once guest hosting the NBC daytime version. She also had a recurring role as Bill Miller's manipulative mother, Louise, on the CBS sitcom Still Standing and regularly appeared on Gilmore Girls as Babette Dell.

Struthers has also provided voices for a number of animated series such as The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (as a teenage Pebbles Flintstone), TaleSpin (as Rebecca Cunningham) and Dinosaurs (as Charlene Sinclair).

Activism

Struthers is also widely known for her work with two organizations that advertised heavily on cable and late-night television. The first of these is the Christian Children's Fund, advocating on behalf of impoverished children in developing countries, mainly in Africa. She has also worked with International Correspondence Schools. Now called Penn Foster Career School in America, the distance education organization offers degrees by sending lessons directly to individuals' homes.

Stuthers' activism has been satirized in the season 1 episode of South Park, "Starvin' Marvin", and the season 3 episode "Starvin' Marvin in Space."

Work

Television credits

Stage

Film

References

External links


 
 

 

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Actor. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sally Struthers" Read more