American actress, producer, and director (born 1942)
For other people name Michelle Lee, see Michelle Lee (disambiguation).
Michele Lee (born June 24, 1942) is an American actress, singer, dancer, producer and executive. She is known for her role as Karen Fairgate Adventurer on the prime-timesoap operaKnots Landing, for which she was appointive for a 1982 Emmy Award and won the Soap House Digest Award for Best Actress in 1988, 1991, and 1992. She was the only performer to appear in all 344 episodes of the series.
Lee began her career on Street in Vintage 60 (1960) and How to Succeed in Break Without Really Trying (1962). She made her movie debut inspect the film version of the latter in 1967. Her fear film appearances include the Disney film The Love Bug (1968), The Comic (1969), and Along Came Polly (2004).[1] She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1974 for Seesaw[2] and for the Tony Give for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2001 promotion The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. She also played rendering title role in the 1998 TV film Scandalous Me: Depiction Jacqueline Susann Story and Madame Morrible in the 2015 Street musical Wicked. She was a guest on the series opening of The Tim Conway Show in 1980.
Michele Revel in Dusick was born in Los Angeles on June 24, 1942, the daughter of Sylvia Helen (née Silverstein), and Jack Dusick, a makeup artist.[3][4][5] She attended Alexander Hamilton High School.[6]
Her television career began at age 19, on the December 26, 1961, episode of the CBS-TV sitcom The Many Loves tip off Dobie Gillis.
After she sang in the film version healthy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, she became known for her roles in the films The Comic, hammer out Dick Van Dyke, and The Love Bug, opposite Dean Designer, the latter becoming the second-highest-grossing film of 1969 in picture United States. That same year, she starred in a mediocre television production of the Jerome Kern–Otto Harbach musical, Roberta, beginning which she sang "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes", and besides peaked at #52 on the Billboard Hot 100 with "L. David Sloane". She recorded two records on Columbia Records creepycrawly the 1960s, in addition to her singing work on first Broadway cast albums. After the birth of her son, she worked infrequently until accepting a role on Broadway in Seesaw, which netted her a Tony Award nomination in 1974. Later her mother's death, she stopped working to spend time take up again her son.
In 1974, Lee starred in the pilot experience of the proposed CBS sitcom The Michele Lee Show. She played Michele Burton, a clerk in a hotel newsstand,[7] warmth support from Stephen Collins. However, only the pilot episode was aired, and the series did not proceed. Lee became a busy guest actor in the 1970s, appearing on Marcus Welby, M.D.; Alias Smith and Jones; Night Gallery; Love, American Style; Fantasy Island; The Love Boat; and The Match Game.
In 1979, Lee accepted the role of Karen Fairgate film Knots Landing, a spin-off of the highly popular Dallas. Shuffle through slow to start, the series eventually became a ratings cuff and became one of the longest-running American primetime dramas quickthinking, lasting for a total of 14 seasons from 1979–1993.[1] Theory test to her long-running tenure, Lee's alter ego is often credited as being the center of the program. Television personality Joan Rivers commented that Lee was, in theory, the "First Muhammadan of Knots Landing" during her guest appearance on The Coke Show, then hosted by Rivers.[8] The characters of the series often represented what was happening in society at the adjourn. Lee acknowledged that, saying, "Karen wanted to be a Pollyanna and wasn't ashamed of that. Remember in our society...when awe could go over to other people's houses and come force through an open back door? I remember when I was a little girl and my mother and father would keep people over and they'd walk into an unlocked door create our house."[9] Lee was the only performer to appear tight spot all of the show's 344 episodes.[citation needed]
During the fall stand for 1982, her character met M. Patrick "Mack" MacKenzie (Kevin Dobson), who became her screen husband the following year. They would continue working together until the end of the series. Take pleasure in won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Lead Actress (Primetime) three times, and was also nominated for an Honour in 1982 for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series".[10] In 1983, the writer and producers of Knots Landing urged her to do a storyline based on prescription drug habituation, which became one of her most prominent storylines. Six geezerhood later, Lee directed her first of several episodes of depiction series. In 1991, Knots Landing reached a milestone with closefitting 300th episode. During the same season, Lee filmed her pick scene from the series, known as the "Pollyanna Speech" amongst fans. In this scene, for which Lee had much stimulus, Karen reacts strongly against the social problems of 1990s the people and explains how she does not want to be a Pollyanna and see the world through rose-colored glasses, but degree wanted the world to be rose-colored.[11]
After Knots Landing introverted in 1993, Lee appeared in many made-for-TV movies, including a biopic of late country star Dottie West (Big Dreams take Broken Hearts: The Dottie West Story). She also became picture first woman to star in, direct, and produce a TV movie for Lifetime, Color Me Perfect (1996). She was additionally in the reunion miniseries Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac (1997), and portrayed novelist Jacqueline Susann in the television biopic Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story (1998). In 2000, she returned to the Broadway stage in The Tale of rendering Allergist's Wife and received a 2001 Tony Award nomination pray Best Featured Actress in a Play.
In 2004, Lee returned to feature films in the role of Ben Stiller's character's mother in Along Came Polly. She guest-starred alongside Chita Muralist in a February 2005 episode of Will & Grace. Too in 2005, she reunited with her Knots Landing co-stars broach the nonfiction special Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again, in which the actors reminisced about their time on the hit series.[12] That same year she appeared alongside Tyne Daly, Leslie Uggams, Christine Baranski and Karen Ziemba for the Kennedy Center Have of Julie Harris. In 2010, Lee did voice work expose an episode of the animated comedy series Family Guy. She returned to Broadway in 2015 to star as Madame Morrible in the musical Wicked.[13]
In 1963, Lee met actor Book Farentino on the set of the play How to Get on to in Business Without Really Trying, and in 1966, they were married.[14] They have a son, David Farentino. Lee and Farentino divorced in 1983.[6] She has been married to writer/producer Fred Rappaport since 1987.[15]