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Elizabeth Ashley

Elizabeth AshleyAKA Elizabeth Ann Cole

Born: 30-Aug-1939
Birthplace: Ocala, FL

Gender: Female
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Actor

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Take Her, She's Mine

Elizabeth Ashley was a film actress of the 1960s and '70s, remembered for intense, in-your-face characters who seemed "liberated" years before that term was used to describe women. Her memorable films include Ship of Fools, Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday, Coma, and Vampire's Kiss. She is primarily a stage actress, however; and won a Tony in 1962, for her Broadway debut in Take Her, She's Mine. She was also Tony-nominated for Barefoot in the Park with Robert Redford and a 1974 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which she played Maggie and said her job was "to give every man in the audience a hard-on."

In 1977, Ashley was raped and severely beaten by three drunken men at an abandoned gas station near Bakersfield, California. She did not reveal the rape publicly until 1993, when she testified in the trial of a man accused of raping a friend of Ashley's.

In a story Carroll Baker told in her autobiography, George Peppard showed up drunk at Baker's door during the filming of The Carpetbaggers, loudly telling her he wanted her. When Baker said she was not interested, Peppard threatened, "If you don't have a love affair with me, I'll make love to Elizabeth Ashley." Baker was resolute, and Peppard, true to his word, had an affair with Ashley, destroying both their marriages. Peppard and Ashley then married.

In the 1990s she had some success as a supporting actor on television, with roles on the sitcom Evening Shade and the soap opera Another World.

In 1999, Ashley was preparing to write her autobiography, and had all her mementos shipped from storage to the New York apartment she had rented for 22 years. The apartment was destroyed in a fire, which investigators traced back to a cigarette Ashley had left smoldering when she went out for breakfast. Firefighters found more than $10,000 cash in her partially-burned duffel bag, but all of Ashley's other possessions were destroyed.

Mother: Lucille (d. 1987)
Husband: James Farentino (actor, m. 1962, div. 1965)
Husband: George Peppard (actor, m. 1966, div. 1972, one son)
Son: Christian Peppard
Husband: James McCarthy (m. 1976, div. 1981)

    Tony 1962 for Take Her, She's Mine
    Raped near Bakersfield, CA (1977)
    Risk Factors: Smoking

    TELEVISION
    Evening Shade Freida Evans (1990-94)
    Another World Emma Frame (#3, 1990)
    Suddenly Susan Charlotte Sinclair (pilot)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Ocean's Eight (5-Jun-2018)
    The Cake Eaters (29-Apr-2007)
    Broadway: The Golden Age (Apr-2003) · Herself
    Hey Arnold! The Movie (May-2002) · Mrs. Vitello [VOICE]
    Labor Pains (7-Nov-2000) · Janice
    Just the Ticket (26-Feb-1999) · Mrs. Paliski
    Happiness (15-May-1998)
    In the Best Interest of the Children (16-Feb-1992)
    Vampire's Kiss (2-Jun-1989) · Dr. Glaser
    Dangerous Curves (1988) · Miss Reed
    Dragnet (26-Jun-1987) · Jane Kirkpatrick
    The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (8-Feb-1987)
    Stagecoach (18-May-1986) · Dallas
    Svengali (9-Mar-1983)
    Split Image (3-Oct-1982)
    Paternity (2-Oct-1981)
    Windows (18-Jan-1980)
    A Fire in the Sky (26-Nov-1978)
    Coma (6-Jan-1978) · Mrs. Emerson
    Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday (23-Jun-1976) · Nancy Sue
    One of My Wives Is Missing (5-Mar-1976)
    92 in the Shade (22-Aug-1975) · Jeannie Carter
    Rancho Deluxe (14-Mar-1975) · Cora Brown
    Golden Needles (17-Jul-1974) · Felicity
    Paperback Hero (21-Sep-1973)
    When Michael Calls (5-Feb-1972)
    The Face of Fear (8-Oct-1971)
    The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (19-Aug-1971)
    The Third Day (4-Aug-1965)
    Ship of Fools (29-Jul-1965) · Jenny
    The Carpetbaggers (9-Apr-1964)


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