Constance Towers

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Constance Towers on the set of the General Hospital televised program during Los Angeles Navy Week 2011

Constance Towers (born May 20, 1933 in Whitefish , Montana ) is an American actress and singer .

Life

Origin and education

Towers was born in 1933 (according to other, but probably inaccurate, information in 1934) as Constance Mary Towers, the daughter of Harry J. Towers and his wife Ardath L. (Reynolds) Towers. As a child, she had the desire to become an opera singer . Towers, according to their own information on their official website , received a contract offer from Paramount Pictures at the age of eleven , which their parents refused.

After her family moved to New York City , Towers studied acting and singing at the Juilliard School of Music and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts .

theatre

She gained her first stage experience at summer theater performances of musicals . From the 1960s, Towers worked as a stage actress, particularly as a musical actress . In 1960 she sang Sarah Brown in the musical Guys and Dolls at the Civic Light Opera in Los Angeles . In 1965 she made her Broadway debut in the musical comedy Anya by Robert Wright and George Forrest . Other Broadway engagements followed in The Engagement Baby (1970), Ari (1971) and The Speed ​​of Darkness (1991). Her greatest success on Broadway was the role of the teacher Anna Leonowens in the musical The King and I (1977/1978), which she played there alongside Yul Brynner .

During her career, Towers has taken on numerous other musical roles: Julie Jordan in Carousel (1966 City Center Theater, New York City), Julie LaVerne in Show Boat (1966 New York State Theater, New York City), Maria Rainer in The Sound of Music ( 1973 Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Pittsburgh ), Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1973 in Indianapolis ) and the title role in Mame by Jerry Herman (1973 in Springfield ). She also toured the United States with The King and I (1976) and as Guinevere in Camelot (1962) .

Her interpretation of Julie La Verne in Show Boat in a 1966 recording of the New York Lincoln Center Theater's production was released on record in August 1966 and is now also available on CD.

Towers repeatedly took on roles in speaking plays, for example the role of Eleonor Hilliard in the play On a Day Like Any Other by Joseph Hayes at the Arlington Park Theater in Illinois in 1973 . In 2008, Towers appeared in the tabloid Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks directed by Richard Alfieri at the Falcon Theater in Burbank , California . In January 2010 she performed this play at the Rose Theater in Brampton , Canada .

Movie and TV

Towers has starred in movies and television roles since the early 1950s . She had her first major film role in 1955 in the comedy Bring Your Smile Along by Blake Edwards. Her breakthrough as a film actress came in 1959 with the role of Hannah Hunter in John Ford's western The Last Command . In it she played a courageous plantation owner from the south who had to take in troops from the northern states that she hated during the war of secession and was taken hostage. In 1960 she also starred under the direction of John Ford in his western With One Foot in Hell at the side of Jeffrey Hunter .

Towers has been set several times in the cinema to the type of "bad girl". In the 1963 thriller Schock-Korridor , directed by Samuel Fuller , she played the role of a lover and nude dancer. A year later, Fuller cast her as a prostitute in his drama The Naked Kiss . She later had cinema roles in the horror film The Relic (1997) and in the thriller A Perfect Murder (1998).

Towers has taken on episode roles and guest roles in numerous American television series, including Perry Mason , Detective Rockford - a call is enough , Fantasy Island , Murder Is Her Hobby , LA Law - Star Lawyers, Tricks, Trials , The Night Hawk , MacGyver , Matlock , Baywatch - The Lifeguards from Malibu and Criminal Minds .

In 1993 she played the role of Ambassador Taxco in the episode The Forsaken in the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . From 1997 to 2017, she played the recurring series role of the evil and scheming matriarch Helena Cassadine in the US television series General Hospital .

Private

Constance Towers was first married to Eugene C. McGrath; the marriage was divorced. Towers was married to the actor and former American ambassador to Mexico , John Gavin , from 1974 until his death in 2018 . Towers is the mother of four children, a son and a daughter from her first marriage and two daughters from her second marriage. She lives in Los Angeles .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Constance Towers  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Towers, Constance
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Towers, Constance Mary (maiden name); Towers, Conny
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress and singer
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Whitefish , Montana