Sally Kellerman

Sally Clare Kellerman (born June 2, 1937) is an American actress and singer known for her role as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the film MASH (1970), for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Early life

Sally Clare Kellerman was born in Long Beach, California, to Edith Baine (née Vaughn) and John Helm Kellerman. She attended Hollywood High School, but, after a year at Los Angeles City College, dropped out to enroll in Jeff Corey's acting class.
While her work was excellent, Kellerman's weight, by her own estimation near 350 pounds at the time (albeit spread out over her nearly 6-foot frame), severely hindered her prospects. And while, judging from her 1957 film debut, Reform School Girls, Kellerman appears to have shed more than half of those pounds in the interim, the cheaply made exploitation film otherwise did little to advance her career.
Unfazed, Kellerman continued her studies, and, within a year or so, a production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, staged by Corey, featuring Kellerman and classmates Shirley Knight, Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell and Robert Blake, proved somewhat more productive. In any event, by 1960, Kellerman was working on television with regularity, and, towards the end of the decade, was continuing to hone her craft, now at the newly opened Actors Studio West.

Singing career

Kellerman already had a recording contract with Verve Records when she was eighteen. After giving a performance in Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud, she recorded her first demo with Lou Adler and then went into the recording studio with arranger and record producer Gene Paige to record Roll With The Feelin, an album for Decca Records. Kellerman also contributed to the musical film Lost Horizon (1973), in which she collaborated with Burt Bacharach, and Andra Willis (Olivia Hussey); the soundtrack was released by Razor & Tie.
Kellerman sang again in the independent film Open House (2004) opposite Ann Magnuson, Anthony Rapp and Kellie Martin. The same year she had a solo act which was a hit at Teatro ZinZanni.
In September 2008, Kellerman contributed to the song "I Thought About You" in a duet with singer Ray Brown, Jr. (son of Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Brown) on Brown, Jr.'s duets CD titled Friends and Family.
In 2009, Kellerman released her first album since Roll With The Feelin, titled Sally, a jazz and blues album.

Selected television work

She portrayed psychiatrist Dr. Elizabeth Dehner in "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the second pilot for Star Trek (1966). She also appeared in The Outer Limits (1963) episodes "The Human Factor" with James B. Sikking, "The Bellero Shield" with Martin Landau, written by Joseph Stefano, Centennial (1978), and in the 1998 Columbo episode "Ashes To Ashes"
She recently guest-starred in the popular CW hit teen drama series 90210 as the character 'Marla', an aging Hollywood actress with signs of dementia and thoughts of assisted suicide.
She also guest starred in The Hawaii Five O series.

Personal life

Kellerman was briefly married to director Rick Edelstein (1970–1971). Since 1980 she has been married to producer Jonathan Krane. On April 3, 1976, the single Sally was released by the seminal power trio Grand Funk Railroad in tribute. She and the band's Mark Farner had a serious relationship at that time. The song also featured on the band's Born to Die album in 1976 and many subsequent hit compilations. She has one daughter, Claire, her niece, whom she adopted in 1976 when Sally's sister, Claire's birth mother, moved to France and Claire's father died two days after giving permission for the adoption. She and Krane are parents to adopted twins, Jack and Hannah.