Sandy Dennis on The Love Boat

Is that Sandra Bullock as one of the Love Boat mermaids?

Good God please don't tell me they tried to stick her with Capt. Stupid.

It's me, Teri Hatcher, not Sandy! I think the salty air destroyed my hair, but I was still a fabulous mermaid!!

No she has a romance with Harvey Korman. Can you imagine an odder pair?

I believe Jamie Lee Curtis was on an episode when she was young. I think Kathy Bates was, too

Doesn't sound odd at all, r5.

I forget what critic dismissed Dennis as an actress who excelled at using mucous as her instrument.

R6. Yes. With her mother. Also on Charlie’s Angels. She could only get horror movies so her agent got Jamie Lee on as many tv shows as possible. She did a series, too.

Sorry, r6 was meant for r4

The Mermaids perform the Sheena Easton song "Strut".

I don't even know what that means, r7.

Sandy had great hair.

Sandy Dennis would have displayed the same acting in this as she did every other role. One Note

She is a bit dour but she is playing someone who is depressed. She gets an unintentional when she tells Harvey she wants to run a school for intellectually challenged children.

unintentional laugh ...

The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael griped that she “has made an acting style of postnasal drip,” an assessment with which Dennis agreed and worked to correct.

Kael could be pretty snotty herself, but never worked to correct that.

Up the down...

Apart from Melrose Place in its heyday, were any Spelling shows NOT unutterably lame and corny?

I was watching an earlier season show where they actually filmed on location in Greece and Istanbul and not just second unit shots.

Dennis did a lot of stage work in the 80s. Some pretty heavy duty acting like 'night Mother and the doctor in Agnes of God among them.

Funny Girl was hot, hot, hot that year. And I begged my father to take us to see it, but he couldn't get his hands on a single ticket. Instead, he took us to see a matinee of Any Wednesday with Sandy Dennis. He said, Let's go see a woman who's going to be doing the exact same thing for the next 20 years. But she did it best in Any Wednesday, you have to admit.

And you did it best in "Without You I'm Nothing," Sandra.

This was from Season 9 so Lauren Tewes was out and Pat Klous was in.

I wish Sandy had found time to do a "Fantasy Island" and "Murder She Wrote" too.

She needed the money to feed all those cats.

The ultra-short shorts on the men are hilarious.

Thank you for posting this OP. Something about it was oddly soothing. I think I'm going to to on a Love Boat binge.

There are some hot men around the pool as extras.

Nolan Miller is credited as wardrobe consultant here. Does that mean they just dipped into his warehouse and he didn't create anything new?

Gavin MacLeod has more powder on his face than Ann Miller.

[quote]This was from Season 9 so Lauren Tewes was out and Pat Klous was in.

And DL icon Dionne Warwick sings the theme song instead of Jack Jones, who got the heave-ho.

Those turns to the camera for the guest stars are funny.

Usually, R32, but Sandy Dennis looks pretty sad in hers. She doesn't even turn.

She does a turn in the opening credits.

[quote]She does a turn in the opening credits.

She's no Barrie Youngfellow.

Television is very good experience.

My only recollection of her was as the divorced wife in the movie The Four Seasons. She was great at moping awkwardly.

Forget Sandy. Ted Mcginley was adorable! Forgot he had a stint on Love Boat.

I love Sandy and she wasn't any more tic-y than Page or Stanley.

Dennis was superb in The Out-of-Towners. "It was a large brown one and a small gray one."

Oh...my...God.

^ we're being hijacked

The Russian streaming link seems sketchy to me and anyway it paywalls after a few minutes. You are all watching Russian streams with no issue? Do you actually SIGN IN??? The fuck?

[quote]Apart from Melrose Place in its heyday, were any Spelling shows NOT unutterably lame and corny

Have you forgotten Aaron's "prestige" drama, DL fave "Family?"

Nasty Habits

R43 - if you enlarge the screen it doesn't keep asking you to sign in.

thanks hun r46

Terri is the slimmest girl and she has no butt!

The Pacific Princess is quaintly small, compared to today's monsters!

I can think of few actresses who were so believable at playing mentally deranged characters. I was not at all surprised she turned into a crazy cat lady. She might have been interesting as Carrie's mother but she's a bit too mousy for that. In The Fox, she was a lesbian who is killed when she literally gets a tree shoved between her legs.

One of her weirdest performances was in That Cold Day in the Park. Directed by Robert Altman of all people, it focused on a lonely spinster (typecasting) who becomes obsessed with Michael Burns, whom she thinks is mute. It ends happily with her hiring a hooker for him and in her jealousy, she ends up murdering her.

Dennis admitted she only did parts for money towards the end of her life. Sometimes she’d get a real jewel like a Broadway role or that character in Another Woman. A lot of times it was crap like the Love Boat or a movie like 976-Evil. It was truly sad she died so young. Even having Sandy in a shit film was always entertaining.

R50, she did the parts for money because she had to pay for her cats, which she also admitted.

From memory she has no lines at all in her last role in The Indian Runner. She plays the husband of Charles Bronson of all people. I think she had lines but director Sean Penn cut them so she is a silent presence. By this time Sandy was ill with the cancer that would kill her. And she had lost her beautiful hair.

Only superstars have the chance to pick and choose their roles. Everyone needs money and acting is a job.

she plays the WIFE of ...

[quote]She plays the husband of Charles Bronson of all people.

Oh, why did you have to fix that, r54? Why?

Way back when, Rex Reed did a piece on her and noted that she served him drinks in a glass filled with cat hair. Knowing Reed's proclivity for lurid exaggeration, you could think it was just hyperbole. But she had 37(!!!) cats and three dogs. I'm surprised Rex didn't run out of her house screaming.

She was a cat lady not a *crazy* cat lady. Even with all of the cats, she wasn't slovenly about it. I've written this before but I met her backstage after a summer stock performance in Born Yesterday. She was lovely.

I believe Rex Reed. I’m all for pets but 37 cats? Come on. I visited people once who had about 15 cats. It was ridiculous (it was only for about an hour). Of course she’d be serving drinks with cat hair in them. She probably had more cats than glasses.

Sean Penn cast her in Indian Runner because she was about to lose her insurance and needed the work to stay insured. Very sad.

I mean this is a nightmare. Anyone who has this many cats absolutely had a mental problem.

There were also two dogs in that photo. As someone who worked in animal rescue, I can attest that it is not physically possible for one person, even with help, to keep that kind an environment clean.

[quote]I believe Rex Reed.

Bless your heart, Beanie.

R62 Whatever that means.

[quote]There were also two dogs in that photo. As someone who worked in animal rescue, I can attest that it is not physically possible for one person, even with help, to keep that kind an environment clean.

And then there is this to consider about Sandy Dennis: "I like to clean," she says. "Sometimes, I get up at 5:30 in the morning and the first thing I think is, 'What can I clean today.' And then I clean until 10:30 at night, when I fall into bed. It gives me tremendous pleasure. I use a toothbrush to clean the baseboards. And I love to watch the shine come up when I buff the floors. I love to have my curtains cleaned and my linens ironed. I love to wash walls." She smiles, her uncertain, somewhat fearful, darting smile. "It's madness."

I heard she bought herself a boa constrictor after the divorce, and took a vacation to Czechoslovakia.

R21 - I believe she did night, Mother with Eileen Heckart. A lotta hand pointing going on no doubt in that show.

Who’s Sandy Dennis again? Was she the one on room 222?

She's the daughter of Sandy Bulloks and Dennis Rodman.

I think she gave the best performance of the four actors on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

I think Harvey comes off better in the show than her. Even though he's playing a fantasist he keeps it real. When she tells him she wanted his company more than his money, I don't believe it. Not that she is a gold-digger but more that we don't see much affection from her to him.

"Oh my gawwwwd, I'm on 'The Love Boat'"!?!!

Love SD but how can we forget the episode of Fantasy Island when Alison Armgrim (Nellie Oleson) plays Jan Brady’s (Eve Plumb) mother in a wacky time machine episode.

Here she is in Born Yesterday with Gary Merrill.

She dated Eric Roberts in his prime.

Please tell me the actors in that BORN YESTERDAY are not in costume!

Maybe that's her in the after stage of Billie Dawn.

She was wonderful in the role.

Sandy was just one of the many, MANY Oscar winners to appear on The Love Boat.

True, R78. I won back-to-back best actress Oscars, and even I appeared on "The Love Boat."

Luise's episode.

Could Born Yesterday be updated to the 1970s? Or is that the 1980s?

Melanie and Don thought so.

Oh I forgot about that, r82!

Fatty Jill Whelan has a turn in the opening credits of Luise's episode.

I imagine doing a guest star turn on The Love Boat for these old has beens was like a paid vacation. Can't blame any of them for taking the job.

That production was in 1974, r81.

Do you know who the handsome younger actor is playing the William Holden character, r86? He looks so familiar.

Oh Christ Luise plays a double role.

Eric Roberts allegedly said she gave great blowjobs even though she was a lesbian.

She was a character actress whose Oscar win was almost 20 years before, this wasn’t evidence or proof of s career decline, just a reality for a working actor. Of the winners from 1960-69 (Dennis won in 1967) only Goldie Hawn became a superstar and she was already on an iconic TV show when she won.

I believe it was Peter Brandon, r87...

She did The Bad Seed on stage in 1988. Wonder which part.

I liked her in Who's Afraid of VW but disliked her in The Out of Towners. OMG, that whiny voice.

R90 Goldie’s career has been largely hit or miss. Foul Play, Shampoo and Private Benjamin were successful but she stumbled in the 80s with a few bad films. She rebounded some in the 90s with Death Becomes Her and First Wives Club though. Of the winners of the 60s Burt Lancaster, Sophia Loren, Rita Moreno, Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Julie Andrews, Peter Ustinov, Lee Marvin, Julie Christie, Shelley Winters, Walter Matthau, Sandy Dennis, Elizabeth Taylor, Kate Hepburn, Barbra Streisand, Jack Albertson, Ruth Gordon, Maggie Smith and John Wayne to name few have all had better careers and more acclaim than Goldie. Maybe not superstar (excluding Wayne, Taylor, Andrews, Hepburn) but better nonetheless.

I just put her and Page and Stanley together as a trio of *studied* actresses who are in the moment and real, but very mannered. I enjoy watching all three.

I give Sandy props for not doing the little girl voice that Page did.

Sandy seemed almost normal in Steven Spielberg's excellent TV horror movie Something Evil costarring Family Affair's Johnny Whitaker.

I still think it's noteworthy Lillian Gish was once a guest star.

As was Andy Warhol, r98.

[quote]I liked her in Who's Afraid of VW but disliked her in The Out of Towners. OMG, that whiny voice.

Awful movie. Neil Simon at his absolute worst. Even Jack Lemmon's character is thoroughly unlikable for the entire film.

I would love to have seen Sandy as Blanche in Streetcar. She did a lot of summer stock including Bus Stop and The Royal Family.

Even though Charo appeared 12 times on "The Love Boat," the episode with Captain and Tennille got higher ratings!

The first movie I saw her in was Parents about a boy who suspects his Ward and June Cleaver like parents are cannibals. Sandy plays the kooky child psychologist.

Parents

I remember when they reviewed Parents on Comedy Central's "Drive In Reviews". One of the reviewers called her the late, great Sandy Dennis, obviously not missing too many meals at this point.

We are talking about the supporting actress winners R94 nor every single category winner of the 1960s. Of the 1960-69 winners Goldie was elevated to A list stardom, but was already on that path because of Laugh In. Most of the winners were solid supporting character actors which is what the category mostly used to award for.

So taking a part on the love boat 20 years after you won an Oscar isn’t a sign of a career downfall for a mostly stage and character actress like Dennis was.

R106 you were the one who used “of the winners from 60-69”. If you wanna go by strictly supporting winners fine, but I stand by my list. Hawn wasn’t the only one who had box office hits in the group, even just supporting. And there’s no guarantee Hawn would’ve had a successful career based on just Laugh In. She left the show before she won the Oscar. So winning it around that time she lucked out big time and had the veneer of being an Oscar winner. It in fact took her five years to have a hit with Shampoo, as a co star. And I don’t begrudge Dennis for doing a Love Boat. Work is work and money is money. Dennis had great acclaim in the mid 60s, winning two Tonys along with her Oscar, but it leveled off in the 70s. She was happier in fact on stage rather than doing film or tv.

Jane Alexander was Sandy's understudy in "A Thousand Clowns"; they seem unlikely to have been cast for the same role, but Alexander said she was still in her beatnik phase and "had a little flair," and that, "Sandy was unique. You could never be like Sandy if you tried. She was really remarkable, so unusual and fun to watch."

I could totally see a young Jane Alexander as Honey in Virginia Woolf or as the beleaguered school teacher in Up the Down Staircase or as the femme lesbian in The Fox or..... Bur in Sandy's more comedic roles, no, not so much.

Cher's character in Come Back to Five and Dime did a sendup of Sandy's acting style.

Why didn't Sandy do the film of Thousand Clowns. Barbara Harris wasn't exactly a big name.

Well, Barbara was certainly sexier.

R112, talk about a low bar.

Sandy didn't seem to have a problem, r113. She said Gerry Mulligan was a beautiful man and Eric Roberts was a beautiful boy.