- Morgan Brittany
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Morgan Brittany Born Suzanne Cupito
December 5, 1951
Los Angeles, California,
United StatesOccupation Actress Years active 1960–present Spouse Jack Gill (1981-present) Morgan Brittany (born Suzanne Cupito on December 5, 1951 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film and television actress. She is possibly best known for her role in the 1980s primetime soap opera Dallas, where she portrayed Katherine Wentworth, the scheming younger half-sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes.
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Early career
Under her birth name, Brittany began her career as a child in 1960 in an episode of the original Twilight Zone series (Nightmare as a Child), as the little girl at the end of the episode. She subsequently appeared in the fourth season episode (Valley of the Shadow) as "Sissy Johnson" and the fifth season episode ("Caesar and Me") as "Susan." She discusses these parts in interviews for the Twilight Zone Definitive Edition DVDs (the season 4 and season 5 sets). She appeared on TV in a 1960 episode of Lloyd Bridges's Sea Hunt; in the 1962 film Gypsy as "Baby" June, (June Havoc). Although uncredited, she appeared in the birthday party scene in the 1963 movie The Birds. In 1964 she appeared in an episode of "Daniel Boone" (Fluellen Family, first season) portraying a young mute girl. She also appeared on Bridges's CBS anthology series The Lloyd Bridges Show. In 1966 she appeared as "Kellie" in the series episode "Kellie" on "Branded". She appeared in a 1967 episode of The Andy Griffith Show as "Mary Alice Carter", whom Opie Taylor (Ron Howard) asks out for his first date. She also appeared in the 1968 film, Yours, Mine and Ours, portraying Louise Beardsley.
Career as Morgan Brittany
After her successful career as a child actress, Morgan at the age of 18, appeared with Gene Kelly in his Las Vegas show "Gene Kelly's Wonderful World of Girls". After that, Morgan relocated to New York City where she became a model with the Ford Modeling Agency. She appeared in a multitude of national commercials and print ads including a 3 year stint as the "Ultra-Brite toothpaste" girl, L'Oreal cosmetics, Ford, Levi's, Camay soap and many more. In 1974 she was hired by the Japanese cosmetics company Kanebo to be the "face" of their product "Ireine". Morgan moved to Tokyo and represented that company for two years. In 1976 she returned to the United States and restarted her acting career. In 1976 Brittany portrayed Vivien Leigh in the biopic Gable and Lombard. That was followed by numerous movies of the week and episodic shows such as "The Initiation of Sarah" with Kay Lenz, "The Amazing Howard Hughes" with Tommy Lee Jones, and "LBJ, The Early Years" with Randy Quaid.
In November 1980, Morgan appeared in a Dukes of Hazzard episode titled "The Hazzardville Horror" as an heiress to an Addams Family-like haunted house. It is during that appearance that she met her future husband, stuntman Jack Gill. Her brief appearance as Vivien Leigh is the climax of the made-for-TV movie Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980). Because of that pivotal moment, she came to the attention of the producers of "Dallas" who were searching for a new character to play the sister of Pamela Ewing.
Brittany first appeared on Dallas during the 1981-1982 season in a recurring role which continued for several seasons. In 1985, she returned for a brief cameo appearance in that season's finale. Thus, in 1987, Brittany made another brief return to the show in which Katherine came to visit Pam in the hospital after a car accident. This was Brittany's last appearance on Dallas.
In 1984, Brittany starred in her own short-lived ABC drama series, Glitter, opposite David Birney, as "Kate Simpson", a reporter at an entertainment magazine. She and Bruce Jenner hosted the sports show "Star Games" and then she hosted over 100 episodes of the magazine show "Photoplay" produced by Jack Haley Jr. She has also guest starred on a number of other prime time shows, such as Married... with Children as Marilyn Beamis in the episode "Life's a Beach" (1989), The Dukes of Hazzard, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote and Melrose Place, and has the distinction of appearing on "The Love Boat" seven times. She also appeared with Bob Hope on two of his television specials for NBC. During the 1990s Morgan created a line of Victorian porcelain dolls for the Home Shopping Club. The "Morgan Brittany Collectable Doll" collection was very successful and sold for a few years on the network.
In 2002, Brittany had roles in the film, The Biggest Fan, and {"Mothers and Daughters"}. She also had a guest appearance on the television series Son of the Beach playing "Kimberlee's Mother" in 2002. She also appears in the 2007 film {"Americanizing Shelley"}. Brittany appears in the 2010 docu-drama 1 a Minute.[1] The documentary is being made by Namrata Singh Gujral and features cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith. She is currently a frequent guest on the Fox News Networks, "Hannity" show where she is a member of the "Great American Panel". Morgan travels extensively, fund-raising and bringing awareness to issues that affect the military and American values. She is also an advocate for child actors in Hollywood and along with former child star Paul Petersen, brought attention to the film Hounddog starring Dakota Fanning. Morgan returned to her musical roots in the 30th anniversary tour of "Mame" in 1997 where she played the title role. She followed that with tours of "The Sound of Music" as Maria, and "Crazy For You".
Personal life
Brittany is the mother of actress Katie Gill and musician/stuntman Cody Gill. During the 1980s, Morgan was a national ambassador for the March of Dimes. She traveled all over the United States raising funds and bringing awareness to the prevention of birth defects. She participated in the Congressional "Walk" in Washington DC with members of the House of Representatives and then Speaker Tip O'Neill. Her involvement with the March of Dimes lasted two decades. Today she still supports the organization but contributes her time to supporting our troops both past and present. She has appeared on the Hannity television show.
She lives on a ranch in southern California and is developing conservative, family oriented projects for film and television.
References
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3045100027.html
External links
- Morgan Brittany at the Internet Movie Database
- Morgan Brittany at AllRovi
Categories:- American child actors
- American film actors
- American television actors
- 1951 births
- Living people
- People from Los Angeles, California
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