Victoria Principal
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Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1946 or 1950[1] in Fukuoka, Japan) is an American actress, best known for her role as Larry Hagman's sister-in-law and Patrick Duffy's wife, Pamela Barnes Ewing, "Pam", on the long-running CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987. She is also well-known for her line of cosmetic products.
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[edit] Biography
Christened Concettina Ree Principale, she was the elder of two daughters born to Victor Principale and Bertha Ree Veal. On Lifetime Television's Intimate Portrait, she revealed that she is of English, Filipina and Italian descent. Her father, a sergeant in the Air Force, moved constantly and like most military brats after being born in Japan, she grew up in London, Florida, Puerto Rico, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places, attending 17 different schools.
She acted in a commercial when five and began modeling in high school. She enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, and wanted to study chiropractic medicine while still modelling, winning the Miss Miami title in 1969, but serious injuries in a car crash at age 18 made her refocus her energy on acting. She moved to New York City, and worked as a model and actress, following her parents to London to study at RADA, and then moved to Los Angeles in 1971.
[edit] Acting
Her first film was as a Mexican mistress in Paul Newman's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean for which she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. Her next film was The Naked Ape (1973) that also starred Johnny Crawford, in which she went topless. (Years later, on The Tonight Show, she said that this was the worst movie of her career.) She also that year appeared in a nude Playboy pictorial.[2] She later claimed that she didn't read the fine print for her contract for The Naked Ape when she signed it, as it was the fine print that required her to do the nude pictorial.
In 1974, she landed a huge break when she was cast in a co-starring role in the successful disaster film epic, Earthquake.
Two years later, disappointed with her career, she quit acting and for the next few years worked as an agent. Principal planned on going to law school, and later become a studio executive.
Aaron Spelling offered her one year's tuition to accept a role in the pilot of Fantasy Island. She agreed, and then landed the role of Pamela Ewing in Dallas. Her part of Pamela Barnes Ewing was the dramatic fulcrum point of the entire series - a Barnes marrying into the clan-hating Ewing family caused rifts which would erupt for years in and around Southfork. In 1983, her role earned her a Golden Globe Nomination as Best Actress in a Television Series.
[edit] Entrepreneur
She left the show after nine years, and began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions, although she still works as an actress. On marrying Hollywood plastic surgeon Harry Glassman on June 23, 1985 she became more interested in natural beauty, and promoted a self-named line of skin care products, and has written three books about beauty and skin-care.
In late 1999, she appeared on the series Family Guy, in which she played her Pam Ewing role and parodied the infamous "shower scene" in which she dreamed up her Dallas husband's death. In the episode in which the show's family copes with the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust on January 1, 2000, and by the end of the episode, it is revealed to be a dream of Ewing's.
She also appeared in the NBC TV series Titans with Yasmine Bleeth in 2000, and in a 1990 episode of the sitcom Sparks, in which she played the mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The animated television series South Park features a school principal named Principal Victoria, a play on the actress' name.[citation needed]
[edit] Personal life
Principal dated numerous actors and personalities at the height of her fame in the late-1970s, including: Anthony Perkins, Andy Gibb, Desi Arnaz Jr., Steven Spielberg, and Frank Sinatra.
Principal met Christopher Skinner in 1978 when he played a bit role on "Dallas." After a very short time, she married him, but they later divorced in 1980. In 1985, she then married Hollywod plastic surgeon Dr. Harry Glassman after a three-year relationship and after he signed a pre-nuptial agreement. She has no children from either marriage.
In January 2003, her husband was arrested on a domestic violence charge - the charges were later dropped. On May 27, 2006 she filed for divorce from her husband of 21 years, after they separated in March 2006 citing irreconcilable differences.[3] Principal employed bodyguards to keep Glassman from her, but Glassman reiterated that he had never hit his wife, that this was just a divorce tactic, and that: "My arrest in 2003 was a consequence of her abuse of alcohol that resulted in her detention in the Cedars Sinai ER for psychiatric evaluation. My being taken into custody was police error, no charges were ever filed, and the arrest has been expunged from my record. Her current round-the-clock protection is a dramatic attempt to portray me in a negative light and is not based in reality."[4]
On December 27, 2006 the divorce was finalized after the couple amicably split over $50 million in assets. Principal currently lives in Beverly Hills, California and Malibu, and is training for her booked flight on Richard Branson's commercial space flight venture in June 2008.[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Dallas Interviews (retrieved 2006-12-04) lists 1950, as does the (2007) The World Almanac & Book of Facts. World Almanac Books, p.225. “1/3/50.” However, 1946 may be found listed in some older Almanacs.
- ^ http://www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/alive-p.htm#PrincipalVictoria
- ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,1197916,00.html
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000595/news
- ^ http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007701030402
