Soap

Katherine Helmond (Actor) .. Jessica Tate

Born: July 05, 1934
Died: February 23, 2019
Birthplace: Galveston, Texas, United States

Trivia: American actress Katherine Helmond spent nearly thirty years becoming an overnight success. Working fitfully in New York and regional theatre throughout the '50s and '60s, Helmond made ends meet by working as a drama teacher. Her first fleeting film appearances were in the Manhattan-based Believe in Me and The Hospital, both shot in 1971. She received a sizeable role in 1975's The Hindenburg, which utilized local repertory actors from throughout the midwest; she also worked with Hitchcock in 1976's Family Plot. In 1977, Katherine was cast as Jessica Tate, the scatterbrained, hedonistic matriarch on the TV sitcom Soap. She remained with the series until its cancellation in 1981; Soap left poor Jessica Tate facing a firing squad, and didn't reveal her fate until Helmond's guest appearance on the Soap spinoff Benson, wherein she played Jessica's ghost. In 1983, Katherine enrolled in the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop; she helmed the short subject Bankrupt and also several episodes of TV's Who's the Boss, in which she played Mona Robinson from 1984 through 1990. Keeping her hand in films, Katherine Helmond became a favorite of ex-Monty Python director Terry Gilliam, who cast the actress as a vain matron undergoing a really radical facelift in 1984's Brazil.

Ted Wass (Actor) .. Danny Dallas

Born: October 27, 1952

Trivia: Goodman Theatre graduate Ted Wass made his Broadway bow in the 1976 production Grease. Wass later became a lightweight leading man in films; his performances were generally appealing and effective, except when he was required to step into the late Peter Sellers' shoes in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983). His TV credits include the roles of Danny Dallas in Soap (1977-81) and leading character Dr. Steven Ratajkowski in Men (1989). Perhaps Ted Wass' best-known TV assignment was the part of Nick Russo, father of star Mayim Bialik, in the popular sitcom Blossom (1991-95).

Dinah Manoff (Actor) .. Elaine Lefkowitz

Born: January 25, 1958
Birthplace: New York, New York, United States

Trivia: Actress Dinah Manoff is the daughter of actress/director Lee Grant and playwright Arnold Manoff. A graduate of California School of the Arts, Dinah made her first acting appearance in a PBS special. She won a Tony award as the neurotic daughter of an irresponsible movie screenwriter in Neil Simon's I Ought to Be in Pictures; she re-created this role in the 1982 film version, acting opposite Walter Matthau and her mother Lee Grant. On television, Manoff played Elaine Lefkowitz on the serial satire Soap (1978-79), securing a niche in TV history as the first sitcom regular to be "murdered" on-camera. Dinah Manoff later co-starred as Carol Weston opposite fellow Soap alumnus Richard Mulligan on the weekly comedy Empty Nest (1988-1993).

John Byner (Actor) .. Det. Donahue

Born: June 28, 1938

Trivia: Short-statured, pokerfaced nightclub comic John Byner rose to fame during the 1966 edition of TV's The Garry Moore Show. Byner went on to join the supporting ensemble on the 1967 summer-replacement weekly The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, and five years later headlined his own five-week summer series. He has appeared as a regular on the TV sitcoms The Practice (1976) and Soap (1977), and can be spotted in such lampoonish theatrical films as Transylvania 6-5000 (1985). An accomplished impressionist -- he provided the voice for the Jackie Mason-ish aardvark in DePatie-Freleng's Ant and the Aardvark cartoon shorts -- one of Byner's most enduring routines concerns a bad impressionist, whose concept of Walter Brennan consists of kicking the left leg in the air and screeching "Luke, the barn! Luke, the barn!" A Las Vegas headliner into the 1990s, John Byner's TV contributions have included a stint as host of a series of Bowery Boys films on the A&E cable network.

03:30 am - 04:00 am, Sunday, December 21 on WTIC Antenna TV (61.2)

Season 2, Episode 14