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:''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.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Personal life

Filmography

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Weld was born 'Susan Ker Weld' in New York City. Her father, Lathrop Motley Weld, was a member of the wealthy Weld Family of Boston; he died when she was three and left her widowed mother, Aileen Ker,^[1] and two older siblings in difficult financial circumstances.^[2] Weld's mother capitalized on her daughter's beauty and put her to work as a child model to support the entire family. 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 at age twelve in a bit role in the 1956 Alfred Hitchcock crime drama, ''The Wrong Man''.

Career

Also 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 a role in the CBS television show, ''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. Louella Parsons reportedly said, "Miss Weld is not a very good representative for the motion picture industry".
Weld appeared with Jackie Gleason and Steve McQueen in the 1963 comedy/drama ''Soldier in the Rain,'' and although her performance was well received, the film was only a minor success. Although frequently typecast as the "blonde in the tight sweater," critics and others in the film industry have acknowledged her talent. However, Weld never achieved the level of stardom many thought her looks and abilities would bring, partly as a result of her turning down roles in films that became great successes and that made stars of others, such as ''Bonnie and Clyde'', ''Rosemary's Baby'', ''True Grit'', and ''Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice''. Roddy McDowall, who co-starred with her in a 1966 film, said: "no actress was ever so good in so many bad films".
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; ''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'' as a masochistic prostitute featuring a brutal rape scene with her and Robert De Niro. 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 neurotic police officer's wife and aging former beauty in the film ''Falling Down''.
Weld continues to makes occasional appearances in film and television.

Personal life

Weld married screenwriter Claude Harz in 1965 and bore a daughter, Natasha, in 1966. After divorcing Herz, Weld married famed British comedian/actor Dudley Moore, in 1975. In 1976 they had a son, Patrick, and in 1980 after a number of separations, were finally divorced. Weld married the renowned Israeli concert violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman in 1985. After thirteen years, that marriage also ended in divorce.
Weld's photographs have been featured on the covers of two Matthew Sweet albums, ''Girlfriend'' (1991) and '' (2000).

Filmography

★ ''The Wrong Man'' (1956)

★ ''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)

★ ''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)

References

1. http://www.filmreference.com/film/78/Tuesday-Weld.html
2. http://www.moviecrazed.com/outpast/tuesdayweld.html

External links

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