LEILA DINIZ BRAZIL ACTRESS BORN
1945 MARCH 23 - 1972 JUNE 14
Leila Roque Diniz (25 March 1945 – 14 June 1972) was a Brazilian television, film and theatre actress, whose liberal ideas and attitudes about sex had raised the discontent of both the feminists and the Brazilian military government of the 1960s.[1]
She died on 14 June 1972, aged 27, at the peak of fame, in the aircraft accident of Japan Airlines Flight 471 near New Delhi, India.
Biography
Born in a middle-class family and the daughter of a communist activist,[2] Leila worked as a kindergarten teacher at age 15. At age 17, she met movie director Domingos de Oliveira, with whom she lived until age 21. Between 1962 and 1964 she had minor roles on stage.
In 1965, Diniz started working in television, where she made several telenovelas and various commercials. In 1967, she also started to make movies.
In 1969, she gave an interview to the satirical newspaper O Pasquim during which she said: "It's possible to love one person and go to bed with another. It has happened to me."[3] Due to statements like that and the many profanities (albeit replaced with asterisks) that she said during the interview, the article angered the military, and Alfredo Buzaid, Minister of Justice of President Emílio Garrastazu Médici's government, used it as a pretext to decree censorship to all newspapers and magazines in Brazil. The law was known as the "Leila Diniz decree" due to this incident.[4] Diniz had her contract with TV Globo terminated under the excuse of "moral problems," but in 1970 she was hired as a juror of TV host Flávio Cavalcanti's show on TV Tupi (Cavalcanti, curiously, had a reputation as a "right-wing" man, yet he not only hired Diniz, but protected her and hid her in his country house when she was persecuted by the military repressive forces).
In 1971, Leila had a short participation as a burlesque star. In the same year,[citation needed] she married movie director Ruy Guerra, father of her only daughter.[5]
She offended the conservative members of society by going to the beach in bikini when six months pregnant, but expressed surprise at the reaction, saying that the doctor just had recommended the sun as beneficial to her pregnancy and her unborn child.[6][7]
In 1972, coming back from a movie festival in Australia, where she won a Best Actress award for the movie Mãos Vazias ("Empty Hands"), she died in the Japan Airlines Flight 471 crash in India.
Filmography
1966: Todas as Mulheres do Mundo - Maria Alice
1967: Juego Peligroso - Servant (segment "Divertimento")
1967: O Mundo Alegre de Helô - Luisinha
1967: Mineirinho, Vivo ou Morto - Maria
1968: Edu, Coração de Ouro - Tatiana
1968: Hunger for Love - Ulla
1968: O Homem Nu - Mariana
1968: A Madona de Cedro - Marta
1969: Os Paqueras - herself
1969: Corisco, o Diabo Loiro - Dadá
1970: O Donzelo - herself (cameo)
1970: The Alienist - Eudóxia
1971: Mãos Vazias - Ida
1972: Amor, Carnaval e Sonhos
1977: O Dia Marcado - (final film role)
About her
1987: Leila Diniz (with Louise Cardoso)[8]
Born March 25, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA
Birth Name Bonnie Bedelia Culkin
Height 5' 4" (1.63 m)
Mini Bio (1)
The native New Yorker was born Bonnie Bedelia Culkin on March 25, 1948, the daughter of Phillip Harley Culkin, a journalist, and Marian Ethel Wagner Culkin, a writer and editor. Trained in ballet, her parents guided all of the children at one time or another into acting (which included Kit Culkin, Terry Culkin and Candace Culkin). Bonnie herself attended Quintano School for Young Professionals in New York at one point and Bonnie and Kit went on to appear on the local stage and TV. Brother Kit would later be known more for siring a handful of talented child actors and/or stars (Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin, and the rest).
It was Bonnie who was first spotted among the other acting siblings by a talent scout who happened to catch her in a school production of "Tom Sawyer", and encouraged her. She made her professional debut at age 9 in a 1957 North Jersey Playhouse production of "Dr. Praetorius" and then was handed a full scholarship to study at George Balanchine's New York City Ballet. But the acting bug had bitten and after dancing in only four productions (including playing the role of Clara in "The Nutcracker"), she decided to hang up her ballet slippers. She proceeded to study at both the HB Studio and Actors Studio in New York.
Bonnie nabbed a five-year role as young teen "Sandy Porter" in the New York-based daytime soap Love of Life (1951) starting in 1961. During that time, she took her first Broadway bow in "Isle of Children", a show that lasted but a week in March of 1962. She was also a replacement in the established hit comedy "Enter Laughing", a year later. After appearing in the stage play "The Playroom" in 1965, she earned strong reviews for her touching performance in "My Sweet Charlie", for which she won the 1967 Theatre World Award for "promising new artist". In it, she played a pregnant young Southern girl on the lam with a black lawyer. Patty Duke recreated the role a few years later on TV and captured an Emmy.
Films beckoned at this point and Bonnie made her debut lending topnotch support in The Gypsy Moths (1969) which reunited From Here to Eternity (1953) stars Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. She earned even better marks in her next two films, one performance simply haunting and the other one hilarious. Once again playing pregnant and once again delivering a touching pathos, she played the dirt-poor marathon dancer who pitches songs for pennies and the almost-mother of Bruce Dern's child in the superb, award-winning, Depression-era drama They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). On the other end of the acting spectrum, she played the lovable bride-to-be in the side-splitting comedy classic Lovers and Other Strangers (1970).
By this time, Bonnie had started concentrating on family values. She married scriptwriter Ken Luber on April 24, 1969, and bore him a son, Yuri, the following year. The time off to focus on motherhood (she had second son, Jonah Luber, in 1976) proved detrimental to her rising star. The remaining decade was uneventful at best, despite some fine showings in a splattering of TV-movies. Her big comeback came again on the movie trail in the early 1980s when she absolutely nailed the role of race car driver Shirley Muldowney in Heart Like a Wheel (1983). She was surprisingly overlooked at Oscar time, however, despite the praise she received. Despite respected work in subsequent movies such as Violets Are Blue... (1986), The Prince of Pennsylvania (1988), Presumed Innocent (1990) and a running role as Bruce Willis's put-upon wife in Die Hard (1988) and its sequel, she found better and more frequent parts on TV. She found her niche in TV-movies with social themes and tugged at more hearts in Switched at Birth (1991), A Mother's Right: The Elizabeth Morgan Story (1992), Any Mother's Son (1997) and To Live Again (1998).
In a change of pace, Bonnie joined the ensemble cast of the low-budget cult comedy Sordid Lives (2000), as "Latrelle", a homophobic woman dealing with her mother's death, the imprisonment of her gay brother and her own son's "coming out". The movie evolved into the TV series Sordid Lives: The Series (2008) which reunited her with original cast members Leslie Jordan and Olivia Newton-John. She repeated her role again in still another film -- A Very Sordid Wedding (2017)
More recent independent movie credits include Berkeley (2005), Broken Links (2016), The Scent of Rain & Lightning (2017), A Stone in the Water (2019). She also managed a few regular TV series roles: The Division (2001) as a police captain, and Parenthood (2010) as a family matriarch opposite Craig T. Nelson.
Divorced from the father of her two children, she is presently married to third husband (or fourth, depending on your source of reference) actor Michael MacRae, whom she married in 1995.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Spouse (3)
Michael MacRae (1995 - present)
James Telfer (24 May 1975 - 1975) ( divorced)
Ken Luber (15 April 1969 - 1980) ( divorced) ( 2 children)
Trivia (9)
Her picture appears on the cover of the book "The Films of Don Shebib" by Piers Handling (Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa, 1978). Donald Shebib was her director for Between Friends (1973).
Sister of Kit Culkin, Candace Culkin and Terry Culkin.
Aunt of Macaulay Culkin, Kieran Culkin, Dakota Culkin, Rory Culkin, Shane Culkin, Christian Culkin, and Quinn Culkin.
She appears in two films based on Stephen King books where there's an evil antique shop owner in the plot (Salem's Lot (1979) and Needful Things (1993)).
She has two sons with Ken Luber: Uri Luber (born 5 June 1970) and Jonah Luber (born 15 June 1976).
Co-founded the Los Angeles Classic Theater Works.
Studied drama at Herbert Berghof HB Studio in Greenwich Village, New York City.
Her paternal grandfather was of Irish descent. Her other ancestry includes German, English, Swiss-German, and French.
Wanted to play the role of Margaret 'Mick' Kelly in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), but lost out to Sondra Locke (1944-2018). Bedelia confided to the 8 October 1967 L.A. Times that "they decided I was too old" when she auditioned for the same part as Locke. As it turns out, Bedelia was four years younger than Locke, who lied about her age.
Personal Quotes (19)
I like to do a movie, to be on it 8, 10 weeks. It evolves as you're working on it. Little things come to you every day. It's a slow process, and when you have to pack it into a short period of time, which you do for television, the experience is not one that I cherish. So if it's going to be television, it's really got to be the right thing.
It's hard to think it's important to try out as cheerleader when you're starring on Broadway. But you do kind of miss the things that I now see my children doing. I'm just happy they are not actors. The Valentine's Day dance is really important. Pitching in Little League is very important. And the medals and the scouts are really important.
I don't consider roles like in Die Hard (1988) what I do. This is like a hobby. It's fun. I had a good time. And I love being in a movie that people actually go see. But it's about things getting blown up. It's not about great character development.
When I was 14, my mother died. My father, who had always had ulcers, came apart. He had a series of intestinal operations, and was in the hospital for nearly a year. So the four of us teenagers lived by ourselves in the apartment without a guardian.
Unless you burst into movies as a sex goddess, you're likely to play wives and mothers. I came into movies as a teenager in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) playing a pregnant waif from the Ozarks. I didn't get a chance to burst into movies in Body Heat (1981). My career isn't based on having a 23-inch waist and a big bust, though I do.
Women over 35 have great stories, and the actresses are there, but you can't get the movies made.
I'm from New York; I've been in show business all my life. I'm a wild and crazy gal, yet I always play these soft, warm, loving earth mothers. It's a pain in the butt. I'm a femme fatale!
If someone were to come from another planet and see the world through movies, they'd think that the world was populated by white men in their 30s who shoot a lot.
I grew up in a slum neighborhood - rows of tenements, with stoops, and kids all over the street. It was a real neighborhood - we played kick-the-can and ring-a-levio.
If I spoke Italian, I'd be in Italy in a minute. I love the food, I love the way people live there. I mean, it really is my idea of paradise.
I didn't even know how to judge Die Hard (1988). It's not anything I know how to judge. I'd never seen an action movie. I'd never seen a Sylvester Stallone movie or an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie or a Charles Bronson movie. And that is the truth.
I don't take the roles home with me. I don't work that way. I don't understand that; I mean, I really don't when I hear that.
We need children to play the parts in movies. I'm just glad it's not my kids.
My grandfather had been on the New York City force with his 11 brothers around the turn of the century. He was killed in the line of duty. My father, who was 16, was the oldest son, so he had to quit school and go to work to support his mother.
I've had some interesting roles along the way, but they tend to be cause-driven. They're always about something. There isn't time for character work as an actor because you're fighting the cause or mourning the child or fighting the disease, etc.
It's pretty scary, but it really is just numbers. I heard someone say that, and it's true. I turn 65 in March, and I actually just got my Medicare card because I'd been dragging my feet about that. But, boy, do I not feel like 65. I feel like I'm 40.
I have two children - could I ever choose between them? Never. That's what 'Sophie's Choice' was about. If you have 50 children, you don't love one less.
Whenever there's heavy-duty emotional work to be done, they call me. As for playing the completely off-the-wall, sexy, gorgeous lady that I am - no, they don't think of me.
I look in the mirror, and I go, 'You look 40.' I feel like I look 40. I may not, but that's my feeling, so I can't really relate to it (being 65). I'm going to have to start. I can't say it's scary. It's weird; it's just weird.
