Janet Margolin

Janet Natalie Margolin (July 25, 1943 – December 17, 1993) was an American theater, television and film actress. Early life Margolin was born in New York City, the daughter of Benjamin and Annette (née Lief) Margolin. Her father was a Russian-born accountant who founded the Nephrosis Foundation, now the Kidney Foundation of New York and her mother was a dental assistant. Her father had many friends and clients who were associated with theater and would often ask her to audition for roles. Until the late 1950s, Margolin aspired to become a doctor, yet was always interested in acting and decided to give it a try following insistence from her father's friends. She attended the High School of Performing Arts and just prior to her graduation, did a screen test for Five Finger Exercise, where she was urged to sign a contract but declined, instead returning to New York. Career Margolin's earliest acting roles were in a commercial for Zest and several instalments in the soap opera The Edge of Night. In 1961 at the age of 18, while a prop girl at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Margolin won a pivotal Broadway stage role as Anna in Morris West's Daughter of Silence, beating 200 other applicants. Despite mixed reaction, critics unanimously praised Margolin and she went on to be nominated for a Tony Award. In 1962, Margolin played her first movie role as the female lead in David and Lisa and traveled to Argentina in 1964 to feature in The Eavesdropper, where upon her return she signed a 1-film-a-year contract with 20th Century Fox. She co-starred with Marlon Brando in 1965's Morituri and with Steve McQueen in the western Nevada Smith.