Joanna Cassidy

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Joanna Cassidy
Cassidy at the 2007 Jules Verne Adventure Film Special Awards Presentation
Born	August 2, 1945 (1945-08-02) (age 62)[1] Haddonfield, New Jersey
Other name(s)	Joanna Virginia Caskey
Occupation	Actress
Official website

Joanna Cassidy (born August 2, 1945) is an American actress who has been active in film and television much of her career.^[1]

Cassidy was born Joanna Virginia Caskey in Haddonfield, New Jersey. She got her start guest starring on television series such as Mission: Impossible, Falcon Crest, Starsky & Hutch and Fantasy Island, as well as having starring roles on programs such as 240-Robert, Buffalo Bill, and Dallas.

In 1982, she had her first major feature film role as the replicant Zhora in Blade Runner.^[2] The following year, she co-starred in Under Fire with Gene Hackman and Nick Nolte. She was also featured in such films as Hollywood Wives (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Package (1989), Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991), Barbarians at the Gate (1993), the 1993 adaptation of Stephen King's The Tommyknockers and Wes Craven's Vampire in Brooklyn (1995).

On television, Cassidy provided the voice of Maggie Sawyer in the 1990s animated version of Superman, and had recurring guest roles on shows such as Diagnosis Murder and The District. She guest starred on Star Trek: Enterprise as T'Les, the mother of T'Pol. She also voiced the villain Hecubah in the computer game Nox. Cassidy appeared opposite James Garner, playing his ex-wife, in the 1994 television movie The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A.

She was in the 2001 film Ghosts of Mars made by John Carpenter. In Boston Legal season two, she played Beverly Bridge opposite William Shatner as Denny Crane's fiancee.

One of the actress's best-known recent roles came as Margaret Chenowith on Six Feet Under. Her husband was played by Robert Foxworth, with whom she also acted in episodes of both Falcon Crest and Star Trek: Enterprise. Cassidy earned an Emmy nomination for this role in 2006.

She was in an unsettling "Smokey the Bear" public-service commercial in 1973. Advising people to be extra careful in the forest, she removes a mask, revealing her to be "Smokey" in disguise. She says, "If you knew it was me, would you have listened?"

Cassidy has a daughter and a son from her marriage to Dr. Kennard C. Kobrin in 1964. The couple divorced in 1974.^[3]

In the spring of 2007, Cassidy donned Zhora's costume once more, 25 years after the release of Blade Runner, in order to recreate a climactic scene from the film for the fall 2007 Final Cut release of the film.^[4] In the original release, a stunt performer played out Zhora's death scene, with the physical differences between the performer and Cassidy very evident (including the stuntperson wearing a different wig). For the Final Cut, Cassidy's head was digitally transposed onto footage of the stunt performer, making the death scene fit continuity. According to the DVD featurette All Our Variant Futures, it was Cassidy herself who suggested this be done; she is captured on video making the suggestion during filming of a retrospective interview related to Blade Runner.^[5]

In the second season of the NBC series Heroes, she is seen in a photo of the 12 senior members of the show's mysterious company. Beyond appearances in photographs, the actress first appeared as Victoria Pratt in the 10th episode of season two, "Truth & Consequences", during which her character was killed off.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Joanna Cassidy at the Internet Movie Database
• Joanna Cassidy at the TCM Movie Database
• Joanna Cassidy article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki