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| Birth Name(s) : Dawn Bethel |
Date of Birth: January 17, 1933 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
John M. Freeman |
| Profession:
N/A |
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Full Sheree North Biography
You'd never know from her sexy dancing in 1955's How to Be Very, Very Popular that North was the mother of a five-year-old child at the time. A lifelong show-biz professional, she first attracted attention in the 1953 Broadway production of "Hazel Flagg," and reprised her show-stopping dance in the 1954 film adaptation, Living It Up which starred Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The shapely blonde was then considered the brightest of the would-be Marilyn Monroes, but her studio, 20th Century-Fox (after casting her in films like How to Be Very, Very Popular, The Lieutenant Wore Skirts, The Best Things in Life Are Free and No Down Payment), decided to build up Jayne Mansfield instead. North polished her acting talent in stock and on episodic TV, and by the time she returned to the big screen in the late 1960s, she offered a different image, playing a succession of worldly-wise, sometimes tarnished women in often meaty supporting roles. She gave affecting performances in the 1968 detective thriller Madigan 1973's Charley Varrick and 1976's The Shootist (all for director Don Siegel, who also cast her in 1977's Telefon).
Other credits include The Trouble With Girls, The Gypsy Moths (both 1969), Lawman, The Organization (1971), The Outfit (1974), Breakout (1975), and Maniac Cop (1988, a good part as a crippled, embittered policewoman). During the 1974-75 season she appeared as Edward Asner's girlfriend on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and costarred in the TV series "Big Eddie" (1975), "I'm a Big Girl Now" (1980-81), and "Our Family Honor" (1985-86). North rates this special footnote in film history: Her showstopping hoofing for the "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" number in How to Be Very, Very Popular was advertised as "the first rock 'n' roll dance on the screen"! She also played Kramer's mother on a 1995 episode of "Seinfeld" and revealed his real name, Cosmo. |
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Additional Sheree North Biography
Sheree North (January 17, 1932 – November 4, 2005) was an actress and singer who appeared in numerous Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and television.
Born as Dawn Shirley Crang to Richard Crang and June Shoard in Los Angeles, California, her stepfather was Edward Bethel. Her mother was a seamstress. She was known as "Dawn Bethel" until she changed her name to "Sheree North". She married at age 16, and had her first child, Dawn Bessire at the age of 17 (in 1949).
North's best chance for Hollywood stardom occurred in 1955. After Marilyn Monroe rejected the role, North was cast, opposite actress Betty Grable, as Curly Flagg in How to Be Very, Very Popular. Historians, then and now, including Leonard Maltin, continue to cite North's electrically charged dancing to "Shake, Rattle and Roll", as the film's most memorable scene. Decades later, North played Monroe's mother in the TV movie Marilyn: The Untold Story.
As North's film career as a lead actress faded, she made a significant return to character roles, garnering steady work, starting with Madigan (1968). She made cameo appearances for Don Siegel, including Charley Varrick, The Shootist and Telefon.
Her TV credits included The Golden Girls, Hawaii Five-O, Matlock, Magnum, P.I., and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in which she played Lou Grant's old flame. She appeared as Kramer's mother, Babs, in two episodes of Seinfeld in 1995 and 1998.
North died from complications during unspecified surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. IMDb states (without citation) that it was cancer surgery, however other sources reported that she had been in good health. |
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