Sally Struthers

Cute as a button and with a petite, porcelain prettiness and vulnerability that endeared her to the American public, Sally Struthers nabbed a series role in the early 1970s and became a solid part of TV history as a member of a dysfunctional family quartet in the milestone sitcom, All in the Family (1971). She was born Sally Ann Struthers on July 28, 1948, in Portland, Oregon and raised there, pursuing an acting career following high school. Relocating to Los Angeles, she trained at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts and earned a scholarship as its most promising student. She performed briefly in regional stock plays until finding her break as both a commercial actress and dancer on TV. She appeared as a regular on such variety shows as The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967) and The Tim Conway Comedy Hour (1970) and showed starlet promise in films, as well as offering ditsy support in the Jack Nicholson starrer, Five Easy Pieces (1970), and the chase film, The Getaway (1972), top-lining Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. And, then came All in the Family (1971). Also starring Carroll OConnor, Jean Stapleton and Rob Reiner, Struthers went on to win two supporting Emmy Awards as Kewpie-doll Gloria Bunker Stivic. She and Rob Reiner left the show after seven seasons, both eager to grow. While Rob Reiner became a noted director, Sally made her Broadway debut in Wallys Cafe in 1981, and returned, four years later, with a gender-bending version of The Odd Couple as neat-freak Florence opposite Rita Morenos slovenly Olive. In addition, she found work in topical mini-series drama with Aloha Means Goodbye (1974) (TV), Hey, Im Alive (1975) (TV), My Husband Is Missing (1978) (TV), ...And Your Name Is Jonah (1979) (TV), A Gun in the House (1981) (TV), to name a few. But without a hit show as collateral, offers started drying up. Sally returned to the TV series fold in the early 1980s spinning off her Gloria character with the self-titled sitcom, Gloria (1982), but the ensemble formula that worked so well for her before was missing here and the show died in its freshman year. To compensate, however, Sallys baby-doll voice worked extremely well for her in cartoons. She remained active off-camera, providing little girl voices for Saturday morning entertainment, notably her teenage Pebbles Flintstone character. Other voice-over work included TaleSpin (1990), as Rebecca Becky Cunningham, and puppeteer Jim Hensons creative prehistoric sitcom, Dinosaurs (1991), playing dino-daughter Charlene Sinclair. Struthers significant weight gain in later years moved her quickly into broad character shtick. She showed that she had lost none of the fun for which she was known, by providing broad and hearty comedy relief on both daytime soaps and prime-time episodics, including General Hospital (1963) and Gilmore Girls (2000). She also filled her time with frequent roles on the musical stage. Over the years, she has practically put a patent on the by-the-book principal Miss Lynch, with her many Grease tours, and as the hissable orphanage operator Miss Hannigan in a number of road productions of Annie. Most recently, she copped a 2002 Los Angeles Ovation award for her delightfully over-the-top Agnes Gooch in Mame, starring Carol Lawrence. Divorced, Sally is the mother of one daughter who has made a career for herself as a clinical psychologist. For years, Sally was a prime spokesperson for the Christian Childrens Fund on TV, fervently (and often tearfully) appealing for viewers monetary assistance in finding an end to starvation in under-developed countries. IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

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