Betty Buckley

Thomas Jefferson in the original production of 1776. Additional Broadway credits include two seasons' worth of Pippin (73-75), three years in Cats (82-85) (for which she won a Tony Award), and a healthy run in 1985's The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Betty's first film was Carrie (76), in which she played the tough girl's gym coach whose punishment of Carrie's tormentors set the plot in motion. One year after Carrie, she replaced the late Diana Hyland on the popular TV "dramedy" Eight is Enough, playing the stepmother of a eight-kid brood (at the time, she was two years younger than the oldest kid!) Always on the lookout for an opportunity to sing, Betty took a fraction of her salary to play a Tammy Wynette-style country western star in 1983's Tender Mercies. In 1995, amidst a flurry of press attention, Betty Buckley successfully took over for Glenn Close as "Norma Desmond" in the Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Sunset Boulevard (Betty had already scored a hit in the London production). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide