Beverly Heather D'Angelo

The career of Beverly D'Angelo that spans over more than four decades, is captivating and inspiring, and more than intriguing. Although she was most likely in the roles she did, she was an intriguing character to be watched no matter the role. Hollywood admirers loved her dynamic character, casual manner of life and ability to steal scenes. Beverly Heather D'Angelo is the daughter of Eugene Constantino "Gene", a bass player and musician who was also the head of the management of a TV station. She was born in Columbus, Ohio on November 15 in 1951. Howard Dwight Smith was her maternal grandfather, and also the designer of the Ohio ("Horseshoe") Stadium. Her mother was of English, Irish, Scottish and German roots, while her father was of Italian descent. Beverly once attended an American school in Florence, Italy. Beverly began her career as an animator/cartoonist at Hanna-Barbera Productions. After moving to Canada, Beverly became a session singer and sang wherever she could, from coffeehouses and topless bars. At some point, the teenager was invited to join up with rockabilly legendary Ronnie Hawkins. Beverly's acting career started up when she left the Hawkins band and joined the Charlottetown Festival repertory company. While she was touring in Canada, Ophelia was playing the part of Ophelia in "Kronborg 1582" which was a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Colleen Dewhurst saw potential in Beverly and the show. Eventually the musical director Gower Champion got into the mix and the show was completely revamped, becoming the rock musical "Rockabye Hamlet", which went to Broadway in 1976. Although the show was not long-lived and a few years later, Beverly's Ophelia received a lot of attention and soon she found herself in the West coast with film and TV opportunities. From that point on she never returned to the stage, although she did perform with Ed Harris in the 1995 off-Broadway version of Sam Shepard's "Simpatico" that earned her a Theatre World Award. She appeared in the TV miniseries Captains and the Kings (1976), and later played only a small part in The Sentinel (1977), and Annie Hall (1977), both Woody Allen classics. First Love (1977), Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way but Loose (1978) as well as the film adaptations of the popular counterculture musical Hair (1979) were only three of the co-starring roles. Beverly's best performance was that of Patsy Cline (the one and only) in the biopic Coal Miner's Daughter (1980). SissySpacek, another singer from the country genre and Loretta Lynn's Oscar winner, also recorded their voices.