Biography of Kathleen Beller

Kathleen Beller (born February 19, 1956) is an American actress who was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in Promises in the Dark (1979) and was well known for her role as Kirby Anders on the prime time soap opera Dynasty. She had a small role in The Godfather Part II and a featured role in The Betsy.

In 1981, Beller co-starred in the psychological thriller No Place to Hide, her first adult role. Her character initially was going to be a teenager, but Beller insisted on playing someone more mature. Although she assumed this demand would cause her not to be cast, she won the role, which the film's director changed to a woman in her early 20s. In an interview to promote the film, Beller admitted that, although she was 25 years old at the time, she still had trouble convincing people that she was older than 16. The following year, she played the female lead in the fantasy film The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982). The film was a commercial success, grossing $39 million on a $4 million budget, but Beller later commented that she was dissatisfied with the film. In 1982 Beller starred in the Civil War miniseries The Blue and the Gray, in which she played Kathy Reynolds, a senator's daughter.

Beller perhaps is best remembered for her role from 1982 to 1984 as Kirby Anders Colby in the prime time television soap opera Dynasty. She blamed her departure from Dynasty on the new writers who were hired in 1984, explaining that they had "lost interest in her character and that when her contract ended, they decided not to renew it". Beller said that " come back if they wanted ". She reprised the role for Dynasty: The Reunion in 1991.

After her run on Dynasty, Beller starred in the TV thriller Deadly Messages, which Beller said differed from her earlier thrillers by " itself too seriously". In an interview, she explained her tendency to portray victims in films is encouraged by "the color and size of big brown eyes", "the way roles" and "the episodic roles did while was growing up". Her casting in the film was an unusual one: According to the actress, she received a call from her agent about a script, read it immediately, and drove to the studio an hour later, expecting a meeting. When she arrived, however, she was asked if she could start working right away. She took the role because of "the whirlwind casting", and the fact that she had not worked for seven months, since a guest spot on Glitter.