Beverly Heather D'Angelo

Exciting, fascinating and always intriguing -- are the main adjectives to describe the work of Beverly D'Angelo, which has been well past the four-decade mark. It is possible that she deserves better films than the ones she had to be in, she nevertheless was always an object of interest and was the one to watch...whatever the role. Hollywood admirers loved her dynamic persona, easy-going manner and her scene-stealing skills. Beverly Heather D'Angelo was born on November 15, 1951 in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of musicians Priscilla Ruth (Smith), a violinist as well as Eugene Constantino "Gene" D'Angelo, a bass player who also managed a TV station. Howard Dwight Smith, her maternal grandfather was the Ohio ("Horseshoe") Stadium architect at Ohio State University. Her mother was an English, Irish and Scottish-born mother. Her father was Italian. Beverly has attended an American school in Florence, Italy. Beverly was at first drawn to art and worked as animator and cartoonist for Hanna-Barbera Productions. She then relocated to Canada to pursue a career in rock music. To pay the bills she would sing wherever she could including topless bars and cafes. Ronnie Hawkins invited Beverly to be part of his rockabilly band at one point. Beverly's acting career started up after she quit the Hawkins band and became part of the Charlottetown Festival repertory company. She was performing in Canada as Ophelia in "Kronborg: 1582" A musical rock adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" when the famous Colleen Dewhurst stumbled across a show and saw promise in both Beverly and the show. Then musical director Gower Champion was added to the mix and the show was overhauled and became the musical rock "Rockabye Hamlet", which made its way to Broadway in the year 1976. While the show itself was only a short run and a few years later, Beverly's Ophelia was a hit and she soon found herself in the West coast with film and television opportunities. The actress never made it back to the stage following her time on stage, but she did appear with Ed Harris in 1995's off-Broadway production, Sam Shepard's "Simpatico" which earned her a Theatre World Award. The roles in The Sentinel (1977), and Annie Hall (1977) were her first TV roles. First Love (1977), Clint Eastwood's starring role in Every Which Way but Loose (78) and the film version of the hit counterculture song Hair (1979) were a few of her co-starring roles. Beverly's finest performance was of Patsy Cline (the one and only) in the biopic Coal Miner's Daughter (1980). She and Sissy Spacek, a friend of fellow country singer Loretta Lynn, both provided their vocals with skill.