Hope Lange

Highest Rated: 95% Blue Velvet (1986)

Lowest Rated: 26% Just Cause (1995)

Birthday: Nov 28, 1931

Birthplace: Redding Ridge, Connecticut, USA

As a soft-spoken, natural beauty, Hope Lange was the antithesis of many of her glamorous contemporaries, such as Marilyn Monroe, whom Lange supported in "Bus Stop" (1956). Her quiet, calm manner may not have inspired the same kind of lurid celebrity as Monroe, but Lange's assured performance in the racy, taboo-flaunting "Peyton Place" (1957) the following year earned her nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Paired with the hottest young stars on the Twentieth Century Fox lot, Lange spent a decade as the on-call ingénue before her affair with older actor Glenn Ford, who demanded that she be cast in his films, sidelined her career with two back-to-back disappointments. Lange found her way back to the top of her form on television, winning two Emmy Awards for her starring role on the romantic sitcom "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (NBC, 1968-69 / ABC, 1969-1970). She would also play Dick van Dyke's wife in "The New Dick Van Dyke Show" (CBS, 1971-74) and star in a constant stream of made for television movies before poor health forced her into retirement in the late 1990s. Hope Lange's long and acclaimed career, which eschewed the shallow trappings of glamour and celebrity, was a testament to her quiet, subtle and assured talent.