Maureen Teefy

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Maureen Jane Teefy (born October 26, 1953 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ) is an American actress. She gained fame through her participation in the feature film Fame - Der Weg zum Ruhm (1980).

biography

Training and first film roles

Maureen Teefy was born into a large Irish Catholic family in the American Midwest in 1953 and grew up with seven sisters. Her father, Donald Teefy, was an insurance salesman. Her mother, a nurse, campaigned against the abortion ban. Teefy started tap dancing at the age of four . She never got interested in school, appeared in a number of plays, and auditioned for a place in the Children's Theater Company at the Minneapolis Institute of Art when she was twelve . She was accepted when she was 14. She described her childhood as unhappy, which she attributed to the large family and the strict and religious home. She protested against her parents, ran away from home at the age of 15 and 17 and hitchhiked to Colorado ( "They used to call me the tiger of the neighborhood" ).

After Teefy played Irina in a performance of Anton Chekhov's Die Möwe in Minneapolis , she went back to school. As a waitress, she financed a move to the east coast, where she attended the Boston Conservatory of Music for two years . Thanks to scholarships, two more years of training at the renowned Juilliard School in New York followed . In 1977 Teefy moved to Los Angeles , where she tried to pursue a serious career as an actress. She earned her living as a waitress and door-to-door saleswoman. After a string of failures, Teefy landed an eight-month contract with the Los Angeles Shakespeare Festival and found an agent who helped her get her some television roles.

Breakthrough with "Fame"

In 1979 Teefy played roles in three feature films. After a small part in Richard Grand's drama Fyre , Steven Spielberg became aware of the actress and gave her a small role as an Irish USO girl in his 1941 comedy film Where Please Go to Hollywood . Her third film role was that of the shy stepdaughter of Cloris Leachman in Michael Schultz 'comedy Scavenger Hunt . International fame brought her Alan Parker's Fame - The Road to Fame in 1980 . The musical film describes in five episodes (entrance exams and four school years) the career of a group of students from the New York High School of Performing Arts . Teefy took on the role of the shy Brooklyn drama student Doris Finsecker, who is driven to a career in show business by her Jewish mother. She was one of the oldest members of the cast around Irene Cara , Paul McCrane , Laura Dean , Antonia Franceschi , Eugene Anthony Ray , Barry Miller and Lee Curreri . Although she said she didn't know what role she was auditioning for, director Parker liked her vulnerability and gave her the part of Doris.

Fame , which shows the worries, needs and dreams of aspiring dancers, singers, actors and musicians, was very popular with audiences and received praise from critics. The film won two Oscars and a Golden Globe Award and was followed by works on a similar theme ( Flashdance , 1983; Footloose , 1984). Unsupported by her conservative parents, Teefy decided against the offer to embody Doris in the television series of the same name (1982-1987), which went to Valerie Landsburg ( "I didn't want to play the same role again and again" ). She moved back to New York, where she was elected "Princess" of the Azalea Festival in 1981, where actresses such as Polly Bergen , Kathryn Grayson and Esther Williams were well-known predecessors. According to Teefy, a leading role in the comedy film My Kid of Guy was broken up due to an actors' strike. In it she should have played a shy girl who becomes a successful designer in New York.

End of the career

In 1982 Teefy was represented with a bigger role in Patricia Birch's Grease 2 , in which she played the simple-minded Sharon, a member of the Pink Ladies . The musical film turned out to be a flop with critics and could not build on the great success of the first part . That same year, Teefy married in New York Alexander Cassini, son of former society columnist Igor Cassini and nephew of fashion designer Oleg Cassini . In 1983 she was seen together with Deborah Geffner and Shanna Reedin as aspiring dancers at the ABC television musical Radio City Music Hall .

Although she had been prophesied of a successful acting career with Kathleen Beller , Kathleen Quinlan , Angela Cartwright and Stacey Nelkin , she could no longer build on the early film success. Sporadic appearances in a few series and five cinema and television films followed until 1997. With the exception of Star Time (1992), her husband's directorial debut and the romantic comedy Three Men and a Bet (1997), which never came out in theaters, all of them were minor roles. In 1997, Teefy voiced the robot Chrome in the horror and science fiction series Perversions of Science ( HBO ), an offshoot of Tales from the Crypt . Her last television appearance was in 1998 in an episode of the series Mike Hammer (episode: The Long Road to Nowhere ).

Divorced from her husband and mother of one daughter, Maureen Teefy lives in Venice , California. She is interested in yoga and joined the Buddhist faith .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d cf. Bennetts, Leslie: New Face: Maureen Teefy . In: The New York Times, Aug 29, 1980, Section C, p. 3
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Puente, Maria: The 'Fame' gang: Maureen Teefy at usatoday.com, September 23, 2009 (accessed June 4, 2010)
  3. ↑ cf. Bostrom, Majsan: Meet Your Queen . In: Star News (Wilmington, NC) March 10, 2006, pp. 1A, 4A
  4. ↑ cf. Maureen Teefy Is Wed To Alexander Cassini . In: The New York Times, May 23, 1982, p. 58
  5. ↑ cf. Davis, Ivor: Beller's cool in the midst of confusion . In: The Globe and Mail, July 23, 1982 (accessed via LexisNexis Wirtschaft )
personal data
SURNAME Teefy, Maureen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Teefy, Maureen Jane (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Minneapolis , Minnesota