|
Goldie Hawn
Scroll down for movie list.
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Attractive, towheaded performer whose career has prospered despite early typecasting as a ditzy blonde and her subsequent appearance in a string of mediocre starring vehicles. Hawn studied drama at American University, but dropped out to crash show business. Her "break" came in the form of a job on the can-can line at the 1965 World's Fair, which led to a stint as a go-go dancer. Hawn eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed a spot in the ill-fated ABC series "Good Morning World" (1967-68). Although the show was a bomb, Hawn's work was noticed by producer George Schlatter, who hired her for his comedy show starring stand-up specialists Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" was an instant smash: Hawn's befuddled, air-headed character made her one of the show's main attractions. She made her feature-film debut as a dancer in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), and parlayed her "Laugh-In" prominence into a plum supporting role in 1969's Cactus Flower a comedy starring Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman, for which she won a Supporting Actress Oscar. Still playing the dizzy blonde, she appeared in There's a Girl in My Soup (1970),$ (Dollars and Butterflies Are Free (both 1972), earning a "one-trickpony" tag from Hollywood wags.
Hawn's career as a "serious" actress was launched by Steven Spielberg, who cast Hawn as a desperate mother on the run in his feature The Sugarland Express (1974). Since then, she has demonstrated her versatility and comedic talents in such pictures as Shampoo (1975), The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976), Foul Play (1978), Private Benjamin (1980, a career high point that made her a bankable star and earned her a Best Actress nomination), Best Friends (1982), Protocol, Swing Shift (both 1984), Wildcats (1986), Overboard (1987), and Bird on a Wire (1990). As one of Hollywood's reigning female stars, Hawn has developed and produced many of her own films, and has attempted to maintain a balance between comedy and drama in her choice of vehicles, but the box-office success of HouseSitter and Death Becomes Her (both 1992) and the failure of Deceived (1991) and CrissCross (1992) seem to indicate that audiences still like Goldie best in lighthearted roles. She has a son by actor Kurt Russell, her longtime companion. |  |
