| Michele Lee |
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EARLY LIFE She was born to a Jewish family as Michelle Lee Dusick in Los Angeles, California , to Jack Dusick, who was a popular makeup artist for MGM Studio s of the 1950 s and 1960 s, and to Sylvia Dusick, who was a stay-at-home mother. She is also the oldest of a brother, who's currently a District Attorney . She began singing in 1945 in front of her parents, and was soon consumed into the entire community. When she was in 10th grade at Alexander Hamilton High School , she tried out for a band and served as its lead singer, at the same time, she became very popular with her class and received excellent grades. She graduated from high school in 1960 , and was destined to become a Theatrical Actress . For this thrilling teenager to become an actress, at her parents' wishes, she dropped the name of '''Dusick''', and the extra '''l''' of her first name, therefore, she became, '''Michele Lee''', and was already popular with her Broadway roles. STAGE ACTRESS She began her career on television in an episode of the late 1950 s sitcom '' The Many Loves Of Dobie Gillis ''. She soon began appearing in musicals, becoming a star on Broadway at the age of 19 in '' How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying '' in the role of "Rosemary", opposite Robert Morse and the late Rudy Vallee , a role she reprised in the film version. When Lee was 18 in 1960 , she auditioned for the Broadway play ''Vintage '60''. She also appeared in more plays, such as the Los Angeles production of ''Parade'' and in the New York - Italian production of ''Bravo Giovanni'' that same year. SINGER In addition to starring on Broadway plays, she also made guest appearances on a number of variety and game shows, making her debut on an episode of '' The Danny Kaye Show '' in 1963 . This part led to other guest appearances on ''The Match Game'', '' What’s My Line '', '' The Carol Burnett Show '', ''Hollywood Squares'', and others. As her popularity grew in the late 1960s , she was also a recording artist signed to Columbia Records. Between 1967 & 1968 , she recorded 2 separate albums per year. The first album she recorded was ''A Taste of the Fantastic'' which was followed by ''L. David Sloane''. She sung mostly in nightclubs and traveled to the famous Persian Room in New York and the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas . FILM AND TV WORK After she sang and starred in '' How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying '' (1967), she first became known for her saccharine roles in the films '' The Love Bug '' (1968), and '' The Comic '' ( 1969 ). Lee’s movie ''The Love Bug'' became the biggest blockbuster movie of 1969 prior to the star's birth of the child. She continued her frequent game show panelist appearances on a number of game shows, including '' The $25,000 Pyramid '' and '' Hollywood Squares ''. She worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in '' Seesaw '', which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. After her mother's death, she stopped working and wanting to spend time with her only son. TELEVISION WORK ''Knots Landing'' ''.]] In 1979 , Lee accepted an acting job after a three-year sabbatical, the leading role in '' Knots Landing '', a spinoff of the immensely-popular, '' Dallas ''. On ''Knots'' Lee was cast as feisty matriarch Karen Fairgate MacKenzie. Her co-stars on the show were Joan Van Ark and Ted Shackelford , who played Karen's best friends and neighbors, Val and Gary Ewing, who both guest-starred on several episodes of its parent show, '' Dallas ''. Lee had been a stranger to Van Ark up until 1979 , but the two would go on to become friends off-screen. The first episodes of the series were not high-rated, but the network continued to support it and eventually the show took off during the second season in 1980 . Also between the first and the second seasons, the show started sending a few actorsactors from '' Dallas '', to guest-star on her show. Although Lee was finally having great success, her marriage was failing. Coincidentally, she and her husband James Farentino divorced at around the same time Lee's onscreen husband, Don Murray left the show. Lee thus played a single mother on ''Knots'' at the same time she was becoming one in real-life. In 2005 , Lee revealed that when her character took off her wedding ring in 1983 , after a year of mourning, Lee was taking off her real life wedding band. When Lee and Farentino divorced in 1983, she met Fred Rappaport at a party, whom she married in 1987 . During the fall of 1982 , her character met M. Patrick "Mack" MacKenzie ( Kevin Dobson ) who became her husband a year later and would continue working with him up until the very end. As one of the leads, Lee became very popular with fans, winning the '' Soap Opera Digest Award '' for Lead Actress five times, and being nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series once in 1982. In 1983, the writers/producers of ''Knots Landing'' urged her to do a storyline based on drug dependency. She hated the script, but agreed to do the storyline. Six years later, Lee directed her first episode and continued to do so until the series ended, and that was before her co-star ( Donna Mills ) has decided to leave the show, she'd been on ''Knots'' since 1980, and for the next nine seasons, Mills always wanted to make the soap better than ever, next to '' Dallas '' and '' Dynasty ''. Lee's co-star ( Joan Van Ark ) has publicly praised her directing skills. In 1990 , ''Knots Landing'' was reached a milestone with almost at 300 episodes in the can, being second-only to its parent soap, ''Dallas''. During the 12th season, Michele Lee wrote her favorite scene from the series which is known as the "Pollyanna Speech" among fans. In this scene, the character explains how she would like to be a pollyanna, but cannot be due to the world around her. As ''Knots'' moved into the 1990s, its popularity waned. The big budget that the series once had was trimmed; in the final season, the higher paid cast members were asked to appear in only 15 of the season's 19 episodes, as the budget constraints had become so that the production company couldn't afford to pay them. Lee refused and appeared in all 19 episodes that season, doing her extra four for union scale. This allowed Lee to appear in all 344 episodes of the series: a record that has not been broken by any other actress in a primetime drama to date. AFTER KNOTS ''Knots Landing'' ended in 1993. Lee has since appeared in many ''. In 1996, she became the first woman to star, direct, and produce a TV movie for Lifetime, '' Color Me Perfect ''. In 2004, she returned to feature films in the role of Ben Stiller 's mother in '' Along Came Polly ''. She and her son relocated to New York. PRIVATE LIFE In 1963 , she met actor James Farentino on the set of the theatrical play, '' How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying '', and in 1964 , she married him. Soon after, she and husband both had a son, David Farentino (born 6 July , 1969). One year, after giving birth to David, she lost her father Jack Dusick in 1970 , of a massive Heart Attack . In 1976 , she lost her mother, Sylvia Dusick, and between the two, she was very devastated about the losses of her parents in separate years. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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