Gail Strickland
Birthday: 1947-05-18
Place of Birth: Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Gail Strickland (born May 18, 1947) is an American character actress.
Strickland was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Theodosia and Lynn Strickland, who owned a tire shop. She had featured roles in 1970s films such as Bound for Glory, The Drowning Pool and Norma Rae.
In a memorable Drowning Pool scene, Strickland and Paul Newman are trapped in a room filling with water from floor to ceiling, stripped to their underwear, with no apparent escape.
Strickland appeared on the U.S. Navy series JAG first season episode "War Crimes". She played Ambassador Bartlett, the U.S. ambassador to Peru.
She appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Night Court as the public defender. She guest starred in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Paradise" as the character Alixus.
In 1994-1995, she appeared as Ms. Landis of Doubleday in the Seinfeld Season 6 episodes "The Chaperone" and "The Switch".
Strickland played nurse practitioner Marilyn McGrath in the 1988 TV series HeartBeat. This was one of the earliest portrayals of a lesbian character on American network television.
She also had a memorable appearance on the television series M*A*S*H as Captain Helen Whitfield, a nurse in an ongoing battle with alcoholism. She appeared in 11 episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman from 1993-94 as the character Olive Davis.
She played Esther MacInerney, the wife of A.J. MacInerney (Martin Sheen), Chief of Staff for President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), in the 1995 blockbuster movie The American President, which also starred Annette Bening, Michael J. Fox, and Richard Dreyfuss.
Strickland was a cast member in the brief run of the 2002 CBS television series First Monday, playing a Supreme Court justice.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Gail Strickland, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting
First Monday
as Justice Deborah Szwark
A newcomer to the Supreme Court finds himself a pivotal force on an often deadlocked bench, frequently at odds over hot-button cases in this earnest but brief legal drama.
Life of the Party: The Pamela Harriman Story
as Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney
Told mostly in flashbacks, the film tells the story of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, one of the greatest and probably most famous courtesans of the twentieth century. While not showing her childhood, first marriage to Winston Churchill's son, or most of her affairs, we do get to see her affair and eventual marriage to Broadway producer Leland Hayward, and then her marriage to politician Averell Harriman, with whom she had an affair while both were married to others in World War II. We also see her as ambassador to France during her last years, and her death in 1997. While some (mostly her lovers) adored her, others (mostly her son and her husbands' children) hated her.
When a Man Loves a Woman
as Pam
An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter's safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.
Three of Hearts
as Yvonne
A lesbian hires a male escort to break the heart of the bisexual woman who has just dumped her.
The Man in the Moon
as Marie Foster
Maureen Trant and her younger sibling Dani share a strong connection, but local boy Court Foster threatens to throw their bond off balance. Dani and Court meet first and have a flirtatious rapport -- but when he meets Maureen, he falls hard and they begin a passionate affair. The new couple try to keep their love hidden from Dani, but she soon learns the truth, disavowing her sister. But a heartbreaking accident later reunites the girls.
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Oxford Blues
as Las Vegas Lady
A young American hustler in Las Vegas spots a rich English Lady. Smitten, he pursues her to England, where his only chance of getting together with her is to enroll in Oxford and join the rowing team.
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Protocol
as Mrs. St. John
A Washington waitress saves the Emir of Ohtar's life, launching her diplomatic career and a scandal.
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Lies
as Jessica Brenner
Struggling actress accepts high paying job to play a rich heiress committed in a lunatic asylum, not knowing she's really being set up as a surrogate for the real girl who'd been murdered.
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Starflight One
as Nancy Gilliam
Starflight One, a commercial aircraft that can whisk passengers around the globe in a matter of hours, embarks on its maiden voyage. The trip goes horribly awry, however, when the aircraft is forced out of the atmosphere and into outer space. As it is too dangerous to attempt reentry, Captain Cody Briggs, his passengers and his crew brave declining levels of oxygen while NASA scientists scramble to launch a rescue mission in a race against time.
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Eleanor, First Lady of the World
as Anna Roosevelt
Biography of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who forged a new role for herself in the years after her husband's death.
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Norma Rae
as Bonnie Mae
Norma Rae is a southern textile worker employed in a factory with intolerable working conditions. This concern about the situation gives her the gumption to be the key associate to a visiting labor union organizer. Together, they undertake the difficult, and possibly dangerous, struggle to unionize her factory.
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The President's Mistress
as Gwen Bowers
A government courier is caught in a deadly cover-up after discovering that his murdered sister was not only the mistress of a U.S. president, but also a Soviet spy.
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One on One
as B.J. Rudolph
Henry Steele is a basketball phenom at his small town high school, but when he matriculates to a big city university on a scholarship, soon realizes that he has few skills outside the sport. Expected by his coach to contribute significantly to the team, Henry is overwhelmed by the demands on his time, the "big business" aspect of college sports, and the fact that he never fully learned to read. Things look bleak for Henry when Janet Hays, a pretty graduate student, is assigned as Henry's tutor. Her intellect and strength lift Henry out of his doldrums just in time to battle the coach, who attempts to rescind Henry's scholarship.
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The Baron
as Samantha - Wasp Lady
A black actor tries to make his own movie with an all-black cast, but to make it he's forced to borrow money from the Mafia.
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Bound for Glory
as Pauline
A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
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The Drowning Pool
as Mavis
Harper is brought to Louisiana to investigate an attempted blackmail scheme. He soon finds out that it involves an old flame of his and her daughter. He eventually finds himself caught in a power struggle between the matriarch of the family and a greedy oil baron, who wants their property. Poor Harper! Things are not as straight-forward as they initially appeared.
