Theresa Saldana

Theresa Saldana
Saldana in 1981
Born	August 20, 1954 (1954-08-20) (age 55) Brooklyn, New York

Theresa Saldana (born August 20, 1954) is an American actress, known for her work in motion pictures and television. She is perhaps best known for her role as 'Lenore La Motta', the wife of Joe Pesci's character, in the 1980 feature film Raging Bull. She is also known for bringing the issue of stalking to early attention after surviving an attempted murder by an obsessed fan in 1982.

Early life

Saldana was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Divina and Tony Saldana.^[1]

Stalking incident

On March 15, 1982, Saldana was the stalking victim of Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46-year-old drifter from Aberdeen, Scotland. Jackson became attracted to Saldana after seeing her in the 1980 film Defiance.^[2][3] He attained Saldana's address by hiring a private investigator to obtain the unlisted phone number of Saldana's mother. Jackson then called Saldana's mother and posed as Martin Scorsese's assistant, saying he needed Saldana's residential address in order to contact her for replacing an actress in a film role in Europe.

Jackson approached Saldana in front of her residence, in broad daylight, and stabbed her in the torso ten times, with a 5 ¹/₂ inch (14 cm) knife, nearly killing her. The attack was so fierce that he bent the blade in his rage.

Although there were many nearby onlookers,^[3] the attack was only interrupted when bottled water deliveryman, Jeff Fenn, who heard her cries, rushed from the second floor of an apartment building and subdued Jackson. Saldana recovered after four hours of surgery and a four-month hospital stay at the Motion Picture Hospital.

Jackson served a 14-year prison term for both the assault and making threats against Saldana and her rescuer while in prison, and was then extradited to England in 1996 to be tried for a 1966 robbery/murder. The mentally ill Jackson (who once perceived himself as "the benevolent angel of death") died of heart failure in a British mental hospital in 2004 at age 68.

Jackson's method to find and approach Saldana inspired stalker Robert John Bardo to hire a private investigator to contact Rebecca Schaeffer.

Saldana's rescuer, Jeff Fenn, was awarded a Carnegie Medal and was compensated by the Carnegie Hero Fund for his actions. Fenn had long expressed an interest in Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department training, was immediately given the opportunity to take and pass the entrance exam, after which he graduated from the academy, and became a deputy sheriff.

Victim advocacy

Following her long recovery, Saldana founded the Victims for Victims organization and participated in lobbying for the 1990 anti-stalking law and the 1994 Driver's Privacy Protection Act, which both came into being partly as a consequence of the attack. The experience also inspired Saldana to play herself in the television movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story, and she authored the book Beyond Survival, a memoir of her experiences after being attacked.

Performing arts advocacy

Saldana supports awareness for the The Jazz Tap Ensemble, of which her daughter is a member. The group raises money for training gifted teenaged dancers.^[4]

Filmography

Theresa Saldana continues to act, and has appeared in dozens of roles on television and films in the last two decades. She appeared in the 1990s television series The Commish, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994.

References

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External links

• Theresa Saldana at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview on CNN Larry King Live with Saldana and Fenn on July 13, 2004.
• The Jazz Tap Ensemble