Everything about Tuesday Weld totally explained
» This article is about the actress. For the band, see The Real Tuesday Weld.
Tuesday Weld (born
August 27,
1943) is an
Emmy and
Academy Award-nominated
Golden Globe-winning
American film and television actress.
Background and family
Weld was born
Susan Ker Weld in
New York City. Her father, Lathrop Motley Weld, was a member of the
Weld Family of
Massachusetts; he died in 1947, shortly before her fourth birthday. Her mother was Weld's fourth and final wife, the former Yosene Balfour Ker, the daughter of the artist and
Life illustrator
William Balfour Ker.. She was one of three full siblings, the other two being Sarah King Weld (born 1935) and David Balfour Weld (born 1937).
She also had two half-siblings by her father's first marriage to Dorothy Livermore Wells: Lothrop Motley Weld Jr. (born 1922) and Thomas Livermore Weld (1926-1999). Her paternal grandfather, Edward Motley Weld, was a noted sportsman and former president of the New York Cotton Exchange. Her maternal great-grandmother, Lily Florence (Bell) Ker, was a first cousin of
Alexander Graham Bell.
Through her father, she's a third cousin of
William Weld, the former
Governor of Massachusetts and is more distantly related to former U.S. presidential candidate
John Kerry, U.S. vice president
Henry A. Wallace, actress
Dina Merrill, British aristocrat
Viscountess Linley, composer
Charles Ives, actor
Clint Eastwood, actor
Anthony Perkins, and
Charles J. Guiteau, who assassinated President
James A. Garfield.
Career
Left in straitened financial circumstances by her husband's death, Weld's mother put her to work as a child
model to support the family. As the young actress told
Life in 1971, "My father’s family came from
Tuxedo Park, and they offered to take us kids and pay for our education, on the condition that Mama never see us again. Mama was an
orphan who had come here from
London, but so far as my father’s family was concerned, she was strictly from the gutter. I've to give Mama credit –- she refused to give us up." As Weld explained, "So I became the supporter of the family, and I'd to take my father’s place in many, many ways. I was expected to make up for everything that had ever gone wrong in Mama’s life. She became obsessed with me, pouring out her pent-up love –- her alleged love –- on me, and it’s been heavy on my shoulders ever since. To this day, Mama thinks I owe everything to her."
Using Weld's résumé from modelling, her mother secured an agent and Tuesday (an extension of her childhood nickname, "Tu-Tu") Weld made her acting debut on television at age twelve and her
feature film debut the same year in a bit role in the 1956
Alfred Hitchcock crime drama,
The Wrong Man. The pressures of her career, however, resulted in a
nervous breakdown at age nine,
alcoholism by age 12, and a
suicide attempt around the same time.
In 1956, Weld got the lead in a film celebrating the advent of
rock and roll called
Rock, Rock, Rock that featured record promoter
Alan Freed and singers
Chuck Berry,
Frankie Lymon, and
Johnny Burnette. In the film,
Connie Francis performed the vocals for Weld's singing parts. In 1959, still only sixteen years old, she was given the role of
Thalia Menninger in the
CBS television series
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Although Weld was a cast member for only a single season, the show gave her considerable national publicity, and she was named a co-winner of a "Most Promising Newcomer" award at the
Golden Globe Awards. Only a year later, in 1960, she appeared as Joy, a free-spirited university student in
High Time, a collegian comedy starring
Bing Crosby and
Fabian.
In 1961, after starring opposite
Elvis Presley in
Wild in the Country, the two had an off-screen romance. However, in
Hollywood, her reputation for recklessness was fodder for pulp magazines and the more malignant
gossip columnists of the day. Weld's mother was scandalized as well by her teenage daughter's affairs with much-older actors, but Weld resisted, saying, "'If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll quit being an actress –- which means there ain’t gonna be no more money for you, Mama.’ Finally, when I was sixteen, I left home. I just went out the door and bought my own house." A busy year for Weld, she also appeared in the sequel to the 1956 film "
Peyton Place". From the sequel novel of the same name "
Return to Peyton Place" Weld was well received as the tortured incest victim Selina Cross. As the pretty girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Weld portrayed the role previously played in the original film by Hope Lange. Although not considered a flop, "
Return to Peyton Place" wasn't as successful at the box office as the original film version of the best-selling and controversial novel by Grace Metalious.
Weld appeared with
Jackie Gleason and
Steve McQueen in the 1963 comedy/drama
Soldier in the Rain; her performance was well received, but the film was only a minor success. Later in her career, she turned down roles in films that became great successes, such as
Bonnie and Clyde,
Rosemary's Baby,
True Grit, and
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
In 1965, she appeared in the successful
Norman Jewison film
The Cincinnati Kid, opposite
Steve McQueen. Some of her most notable screen performances include
Pretty Poison (1968), co-starring
Anthony Perkins and
Beverly Garland;
A Safe Place (1971), co-starring
Jack Nicholson and
Orson Welles;
I Walk the Line (1971), opposite
Gregory Peck; and
Play It As It Lays (1972), again with Perkins, for which she was nominated for a
Golden Globe Award.
In her thirties, Weld gave memorable performances in
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), for which she was nominated for an
Academy Award as best supporting actress;
Who'll Stop the Rain (1978) opposite
Nick Nolte; and
Michael Mann's acclaimed 1981 film
Thief, opposite
James Caan. In 1984, she appeared in
Sergio Leone's gangster epic
Once Upon a Time in America, which included a brutal
rape scene with her and
Robert De Niro. The scene was the source of some controversy, as Weld's character, a
masochistic prostitute, is depicted as eventually enjoying the rape. Weld has also appeared in a number of made-for-television movies, including
Reflections of Murder (1987) and
A Question of Guilt, in which she plays a woman accused of murdering her children. In 1993, Weld played a police officer's
neurotic wife in
Falling Down.
Weld continues to make occasional appearances in film and television.
Photographs of the young Weld have been featured on the covers of two
Matthew Sweet albums,
Girlfriend (1991) and (2000). Singer
Donald Fagen describes a fictional blonde woman as having "a touch of Tuesday Weld" in the song "New Frontier," on his
1982 album
The Nightfly.
Personal life
Weld has been married to:
- Screenwriter Claude Harz, whom she married in 1965 and divorced in 1971; they'd a daughter, Natasha, in 1966. Of the marriage, Weld told Guy Flatley of The New York Times in 1971, "Mama hated my husband –- she’s a jealous lover, you know. She’s hated all the men I’ve ever been involved with. But I really felt that what I'd been doing up to that time with my life was probably wrong, that maybe what I should be was a housewife. Our marriage lasted 5 years; it was just another one of my mistakes."
- British comedian and actor Dudley Moore, whom she married in 1975 and divorced in 1980. In 1976 they'd a son, Patrick, an actor, director, and editor.
- Israeli concert violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman, whom she married in 1985; they divorced in 1998.
Filmography
Rock, Rock, Rock (1956)
Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958)
The Five Pennies (1959)
Because They're Young (1960)
Sex Kittens Go to College (1960)
High Time (1960)
The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)
Return to Peyton Place (1961)
Wild in the Country (1961)
Bachelor Flat (1962)
Soldier in the Rain (1963)
I'll Take Sweden (1965)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
Lord Love a Duck (1966)
Pretty Poison (1968)
I walk the Line (1970)
A Safe Place (1971)
Play It As It Lays (1972)
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977)
Who'll Stop the Rain (1978)
Serial (1980)
Madame X (1981 - for TV)
Thief (1981)
Author! Author! (1982)
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Heartbreak Hotel (1988)
Falling Down (1993)
Feeling Minnesota (1996)
Investigating Sex (2001)
Chelsea Walls (2001)Further Information
Get more info on 'Tuesday Weld'.
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