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Bonnie Bedelia
Actor
Born March 25, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA
The native New Yorker was born Bonnie Bedelia Culkin on March 25, 1948, the daughter of Phillip Harley Culkin, a journalist, and Marian Ethel Wagner Culkin, a writer and editor. Trained in ballet, her parents guided all of the children at one time or another into acting (which included Kit Culkin, Terry Culkin and Candace Culkin). Bonnie herself attended Quintano School for Young Professionals in New York at one point and Bonnie and Kit went on to appear on the local stage and TV. Brother Kit would later be known more for siring a handful of talented child actors and/or stars (Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin, and the rest). It was Bonnie who was first spotted among the other acting siblings by a talent scout who happened to catch her in a school production of "Tom Sawyer", and encouraged her. She made her professional debut at age 9 in a 1957 North Jersey Playhouse production of "Dr. Praetorius" and then was handed a full scholarship to study at George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. But the acting bug had bitten and after dancing in only four productions (including playing the role of Clara in "The Nutcracker"), she decided to hang up her ballet slippers. She proceeded to study at both the HB Studio and Actors Studio in New York. Bonnie nabbed a five-year role as young teen "Sandy Porter" in the New York-based daytime soap Love of Life (1951) starting in 1961. During that time, she took her first Broadway bow in "Isle of Children", a show that lasted but a week in March of 1962. She was also a replacement in the established hit comedy "Enter Laughing", a year later. After appearing in the stage play "The Playroom" in 1965, she earned strong reviews for her touching performance in "My Sweet Charlie", for which she won the 1967 Theatre World Award for "promising new artist". In it, she played a pregnant young Southern girl on the lam with a black lawyer. Patty Duke recreated the role a few years later on TV and captured an Emmy. Films beckoned at this point and Bonnie made her debut lending topnotch support in The Gypsy Moths (1969) which reunited From Here to Eternity (1953) stars Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. She earned even better marks in her next two films, one performance simply haunting and the other one hilarious. Once again playing pregnant and once again delivering a touching pathos, she played the dirt-poor marathon dancer who pitches songs for pennies and the almost-mother of Bruce Dern's child in the superb, award-winning, Depression-era drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). On the other end of the acting spectrum, she played the lovable bride-to-be in the side-splitting comedy classic Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). By this time, Bonnie had started concentrating on family values. She married scriptwriter Ken Luber on April 24, 1969, and bore him a son, Yuri, the following year. The time off to focus on motherhood (she had second son, Jonah Luber, in 1976) proved detrimental to her rising star. The remaining decade was uneventful at best, despite some fine showings in a splattering of TV-movies. Her big comeback came again on the movie trail in the early 1980s when she absolutely nailed the role of race car driver Shirley Muldowney in Heart Like a Wheel (1983). She was surprisingly overlooked at Oscar time, however, despite the praise she received. Despite respected work in subsequent movies such as Violets Are Blue... (1986), The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988), Presumed Innocent (1990) and a running role as Bruce Willis's put-upon wife in Die Hard (1988) and its sequel, she found better and more frequent parts on TV. She found her niche in TV-movies with social themes and tugged at more hearts in Switched at Birth (1991), A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story (1992), Any Mother's Son (1997) and To Live Again (1998). In a change of pace, Bonnie joined the ensemble cast of the low-budget cult comedy Sordid Lives (2000), as "Latrelle", a homophobic woman dealing with her mother's death, the imprisonment of her gay brother and her own son's "coming out". The movie evolved into the TV series Sordid Lives: The Series (2008) which reunited her with original cast members Leslie Jordan and Olivia Newton-John. She repeated her role again in still another film -- A Very Sordid Wedding (2017). More recent independent movie credits include Berkeley (2005), Her Secret Sessions (2016), The Scent of Rain & Lightning (2017), A Stone in the Water (2019). She also managed a few regular TV series roles: The Division (2001) as a police captain, and Parenthood (2010) as a family matriarch opposite Craig T. Nelson. Divorced from the father of her two children, she is presently married to third husband (or fourth, depending on your source of reference) actor Michael MacRae, whom she married in 1995.
Imdb
Top titles
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Die Hard (4K UHD)
Presumed Innocent
Die Hard 2 (4K UHD)
Sordid Lives: Season 1
Parenthood Season 1
Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version
Big Love: Season 1
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Season 2
The New Outer Limits Volume 1
Homecoming
Designated Survivor, Season 1
Lorne Greene's Holiday Special - A Bonanza Of Christmas Cheer
Dedicated to the One I Love
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Arrow
Filmography
Latest
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Arrow
Arrow
2023
The Hill (2023)
2021
Life on the Rocks
Panic - Season 1
Violet
2019
A Stone In The Water
2017
Very Sordid Wedding, A
A Joyous Christmas
Christmas on the Coast
2016
Secret Links
Designated Survivor, Season 1
2010
Parenthood Season 1
2008
Sordid Lives: Season 1
2006
Big Love: Season 1
2000
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Season 2
Flowers for Algernon
Sordid Lives
1999
Anywhere But Here
Gloria
1997
Bad Manners
1996
Homecoming
1995
The New Outer Limits Volume 1
1993
Needful Things
The Fire Next Time
1990
Presumed Innocent
Die Hard 2 (4K UHD)
1989
Fat Man And Little Boy
1988
Die Hard (4K UHD)
The Prince of Pennsylvania
1987
Like Father, Like Son
The Stranger
1986
The Boy Who Could Fly
Violets Are Blue
1985
Death of an Angel
1984
Dedicated to the One I Love
1979
Salem's Lot
1978
The Big Fix
1972
Strange Vengeance of Rosalie
1969
The Gypsy Moths
1959
Lorne Greene's Holiday Special - A Bonanza Of Christmas Cheer
1956
Days Of Wine & Roses - Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie, "Playhouse 90" Original TV Version
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Connections
Del Shores
Matthew Miele
Newell Alexander
Genres