Bridget Hanley
Encyclopedia
Bridget Ann Elizabeth Hanley, professionally known as Bridget Hanley, (born February 3, 1941) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actress, known for her starring and supporting roles in TV
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, western, adventure
Adventure (genre)
The adventure genre, in the context of a narrative, is typically applied to works in which the protagonist or other major characters are consistently placed in dangerous situations...

 and drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 programs, including Candy Pruitt on the Western dramedy Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

. She also starred in Harper Valley PTA
Harper Valley PTA (TV series)
Harper Valley PTA is an early 1980s American television sitcom based on the 1978 film Harper Valley PTA, which was itself based on the 1968 song recorded by country singer Jeannie C. Riley, written by Tom T...

 as Wanda Reilly Taylor.

Early life

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

, Hanley is the daughter of Leland Hanley, an All-American football player at Northwestern University and United States Marine Corps veteran, and Doris Nihlroos. She has an older sister Mary Jo and a younger sister Molly. The family moved to Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Edmonds has a view of Puget Sound and both the Olympic Mountains and Cascade Range. The third most populous city in Snohomish County after Everett and Marysville, the population was 39,709 according to the 2010 census...

, north of Seattle when Bridget was 4. After graduating from Edmonds High School, Hanley headed to San Francisco College for Women to study drama for two years then on to University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...

 whence she graduated with honors and a BA in drama, having appeared in 17 major productions, ranging from Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 to Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

.

Early career

Hanley's first credited role was in the TV sitcom Hank in 1965. She played Terry in the episode "My Fair Co-Ed". That was followed by credited appearances on numerous Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....

 television series including Gidget
Gidget (TV series)
Gidget is an American sitcom about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called "Gidget" and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as her father. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15, 1965 through April 21, 1966...

 starring Sally Field
Sally Field
Sally Margaret Field is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun ; in the 1970s, for Sybil , Smokey and...

, Golden Globe
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...

 winner The Farmer's Daughter
The Farmer's Daughter (TV series)
The Farmer's Daughter is an American situation comedy series that was produced by Screen Gems Television and aired on ABC from September 20, 1963 to April 22, 1966. It was sponsored by Lark cigarettes and Clairol for whom the two leading stars often appeared at show's end promoting the products...

 starring Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens was a Swedish-American movie and TV actress.- Early life :Inger Stevens was born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an insecure child and was often ill. When she was nine, her parents divorced and she moved with her father to New York City...

, Love on a Rooftop
Love on a Rooftop
Love on a Rooftop is an American sitcom about a newlywed couple, Dave and Julie Willis, and their humorous struggles to survive in San Francisco on Dave's apprentice architect's salary of $85.37 a week...

, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...

 starring Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery was an American film and television actress whose career spanned five decades. She is perhaps best remembered for her roles as Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, as Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape and as Lizzie Borden in The Legend of Lizzie Borden.-Early life:Born in Los...

, I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...

 starring Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...

 and Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...

 and The Flying Nun
The Flying Nun
The Flying Nun is an American sitcom produced by Screen Gems for ABC based on the 1965 book The Fifteenth Pelican, by Tere Rios, which starred Sally Field as Sister Bertrille...

 also starring Sally Field
Sally Field
Sally Margaret Field is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun ; in the 1970s, for Sybil , Smokey and...

. While working at Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....

, Hanley was to meet director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...

/producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...

 E.W. Swackhamer
E.W. Swackhamer
Egbert Warnderink "E. W." Swackhamer Jr. was an American television and film director....

, whom she would later marry. She would also make several pilots
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 for Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....

, including her first lead role in the series, Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

.

Here Come the Brides

Hanley played the female lead role of Candy Pruitt in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 prime time series Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

, which premiered on September 25, 1968. According to the show's producers in an interview with LA Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

 TV critic Cecil Smith, it was inspired by the movie Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, and was very loosely based upon the transportation of single women from the East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

 to what was then the frontier logging outpost of Seattle, which in time became a major metropolitan area of present-day Washington State. The show's theme song, "Seattle
Seattle (song)
"Seattle" is a song written by Hugo Montenegro, Jack Keller and Ernie Sheldon. It was used as the theme for the 1968-70 ABC-TV U.S. television show Here Come the Brides. Late in the show's first season, singer Perry Como recorded a version of the song, which became a Top 40 hit for him on the...

," was sung by crooner Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...

, who enjoyed some chart success with it. Hanley's character was the love interest of Jeremy Bolt, played by then teen heartthrob Bobby Sherman
Bobby Sherman
Robert Cabot "Bobby" Sherman, Jr. , is an American singer, actor and occasional songwriter, who became a popular teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s.He graduated in 1961 from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California...

; Sherman's interpretation of "Seattle
Seattle (song)
"Seattle" is a song written by Hugo Montenegro, Jack Keller and Ernie Sheldon. It was used as the theme for the 1968-70 ABC-TV U.S. television show Here Come the Brides. Late in the show's first season, singer Perry Como recorded a version of the song, which became a Top 40 hit for him on the...

" was not as successful as Como's had been.

Harper Valley PTA

Harper Valley PTA was an early 1980s American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 based on the 1978 film Harper Valley PTA
Harper Valley PTA (film)
Harper Valley PTA is a 1978 comedy movie starring Barbara Eden. The movie was inspired by the country music song of the same title written by Tom T. Hall...

, which was in turn based on the 1968 song
Harper Valley PTA
"Harper Valley PTA" is a country song written by Tom T. Hall that was a major international hit single for country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968. Riley's record sold over six million copies as a single. The song made Riley the first woman to top both Billboard's Hot 100 and the U.S...

 recorded by country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer Jeannie C. Riley
Jeannie C. Riley
Jeannie C. Riley is an American country music and gospel singer. She is best known for her 1968 country and pop hit "Harper Valley PTA" , which missed becoming the Billboard Country and Pop number one hit at the same time...

, written by Tom T. Hall
Tom T. Hall
Thomas "Tom T." Hall is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has written 11 #1 hit songs, with 26 more that reached the Top 10, including the pop crossover hit "I Love", which reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100...

. It's the story of Stella Johnson, a door-to-door saleswoman (Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...

), a single mother living in the fictional town of Harper Valley, Ohio who is trying to make ends meet and raise her daughter Dee, following the loss of her husband. The PTA of Harper Valley Junior High School, egged on by its socialite president, Flora Simpson Reilly (Anne Francine
Anne Francine
Anne Francine was an American actress and cabaret singer. She is well-known for her role as villain Flora Simpson Reilly in the American television series Harper Valley PTA.-Biography:...

), took a dim view of Mrs. Johnson's flouting of the small town's conventions. Hanley played Wanda Reilly Taylor, a member of the snooty family that tried to rule Harper Valley.

Later career

Hanley continues to be an active performer at Theatre West
Theatre West
Theatre West is a theatre company in Hollywood, California, the oldest continually-operating theatre company in Los Angeles, established in 1962....

, an internationally acclaimed non-profit arts organization in Hollywood, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Established in 1962, Theatre West is the oldest continually running theatre company in Los Angeles.

Middletown Productions has created and produced “May Day Sermon”, an award-winning one-woman show based on the James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...

 poem. “Bronwen, the Traw and the Shapeshifter” is a more recent theatrical offering performed by Hanley, also based on a James Dickey
James Dickey
James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966.-Early years:...

 poem

Hanley has been a guest lecturer and performer at Radford College 

Personal life

Hanley married Egbert Warndrink "E. W." Swackhamer Jr.
E.W. Swackhamer
Egbert Warnderink "E. W." Swackhamer Jr. was an American television and film director....

, a producer and director of Here Come The Brides
Here Come the Brides
Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

, on April 26, 1969. Together they had two daughters, Bronwyn and Megan. Swackhamer died in 1994. Along with family and community members, Hanley led a drive to save the Ganahl-Hanley log cabin now in downtown Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds, Washington
Edmonds is a city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Edmonds has a view of Puget Sound and both the Olympic Mountains and Cascade Range. The third most populous city in Snohomish County after Everett and Marysville, the population was 39,709 according to the 2010 census...

 

Selected filmography

  • Adam 12 (1 episode, 1991)
  • Columbo (1990)
  • Murder, She Wrote
    Murder, She Wrote
    Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,...

     (1 episode, 1990)
  • Simon & Simon
    Simon & Simon
    Simon & Simon is an American detective television series starring Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker.-History:The original 1978 pilot called Pirate's Key was set in Florida...

     (2 episodes, 1982–1988)
  • Trial by Jury (1987)
  • Chattanooga Choo Choo
    Chattanooga Choo Choo (film)
    Chattanooga Choo Choo is a 1984 film featuring the eponymous train released as a light summer comedy in 1984, starring Barbara Eden and George Kennedy....

     (1984) (/Movie)
  • Mama's Family
    Mama's Family
    Mama's Family is an American television sitcom that premiered on NBC on January 22, 1983. It was cancelled in May 1984, but NBC would continue to air reruns until September 1985. In September 1986, Mama's Family returned in first-run syndication, where it aired for an additional four seasons,...

     (1 episode, 1983)
  • Malibu
    Malibu (film)
    Malibu is a 1983 television film, based on a novel by William Murray. Featuring Kim Novak, Susan Dey, Troy Donahue and James Coburn, the all star miniseries involves a young couple from Milwaukee, who move into the fabled, high-society Malibu beach community, and become involved with the lives of...

     (1983) (TV miniseries)
  • Harper Valley PTA
    Harper Valley PTA (TV series)
    Harper Valley PTA is an early 1980s American television sitcom based on the 1978 film Harper Valley PTA, which was itself based on the 1968 song recorded by country singer Jeannie C. Riley, written by Tom T...

     (30 episodes, 1981–1982) (TV)
  • Reward (1980)
  • Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (1979)
  • CHiPs
    CHiPs
    CHiPs is an American television drama series produced by MGM Studios that originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to July 17, 1983. CHiPs followed the lives of two motorcycle police officers of the California Highway Patrol...

     (1 episode, 1978)
  • How the West Was Won
    How the West Was Won (TV series)
    How the West Was Won is an American western television series that featured an all star cast that included: James Arness, Eva Marie Saint, Fionnula Flanagan, Bruce Boxleitner, G. W. Bailey, Trisha Noble, William Shatner, Jack Elam, Woody Strode, Anthony Zerbe, Richard Kiley, Lloyd Bridges,...

     (1977) TV mini-series
  • Emergency!
    Emergency!
    Emergency! is an American television series that combines the medical drama and action-adventure genres. It was produced by Mark VII Limited and distributed by Universal Studios...

     (1 episode, 1976)
  • Spencer's Pilots
    Spencer's Pilots
    Spencer's Pilots is an American adventure series that aired on CBS from September 17 to November 19, 1976. Created by Larry Rosen, the series stars Gene Evans.-Synopsis:Evans stars as Spencer Parish, the owner of Spencer Aviation...

     (1 episode, 1976)
  • Bell, Book and Candle (1976)
  • Welcome Back, Kotter
    Welcome Back, Kotter
    Welcome Back, Kotter was an American television sitcom starring Gabe Kaplan and featuring a young John Travolta.It originally aired on the ABC network from September 9, 1975 to June 8, 1979.-Premise:...

     (1 episode, 1975)
  • The Rookies
    The Rookies
    The Rookies is an American crime drama series that aired on ABC from 1972 until 1976. It followed the exploits of three rookie police officers in an unidentified city for the fictitious Southern California Police Department .-History:...

     (1 episode, 1974)
  • Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law
    Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law
    Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law is an American legal drama, jointly created by David Victor and former law professor Jerry McNeely, that starred actor Arthur Hill. The series was broadcast on ABC from 1971 to 1974...

     (1 episode, 1973)
  • Love, American Style
    Love, American Style
    Love, American Style is an hour-long TV anthology produced by Paramount Television and originally aired between September 1969 and January 1974...

     (5 episodes, 1970–1973)
  • Ghost Story (1 episode, 1973)
  • Cade's County
    Cade's County
    Cade's County is a modern-day Western/crime drama which aired on CBS during the 1971–72 television season. There were 24 episodes.-Synopsis:...

     (1 episode, 1972)
  • Nanny and the Professor
    Nanny and the Professor
    Nanny and the Professor is a U.S. fantasy situation comedy created by AJ Carothers and Thomas L. Miller for 20th Century Fox Television. During pre-production, the proposed title was Nanny Will Do. The series first aired as a mid-season replacement on January 21, 1970, on ABC and was last telecast...

     (1 episode, 1970)
  • The Interns (1 episode, 1970)
  • The Odd Couple
    The Odd Couple
    The Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...

     (1 episode, 1970)
  • Here Come the Brides
    Here Come the Brides
    Here Come the Brides is an American comedy Western series from Screen Gems that aired on the ABC television network from September 25, 1968 to April 3, 1970...

     (52 episodes, 1968–1969)
  • Mad Mad Scientist (1968) (TV)
  • The Flying Nun
    The Flying Nun
    The Flying Nun is an American sitcom produced by Screen Gems for ABC based on the 1965 book The Fifteenth Pelican, by Tere Rios, which starred Sally Field as Sister Bertrille...

     (1 episode, 1968)
  • The Second Hundred Years (1 episode, 1967)
  • I Dream of Jeannie
    I Dream of Jeannie
    I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...

     (1 episode, 1967)
  • The Iron Horse (1 episode, 1967)
  • Occasional Wife
    Occasional Wife
    Occasional Wife is an American sitcom that aired on NBC on September 13, 1966, and ran until May 9, 1967 . It was originally on NBC's Tuesday night schedule; in the Eastern Time Zone it aired from 8:30-9:00 p.m...

     (1 episode, 1967)
  • Bewitched
    Bewitched
    Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...

     (1 episode, 1966)
  • Love on a Rooftop
    Love on a Rooftop
    Love on a Rooftop is an American sitcom about a newlywed couple, Dave and Julie Willis, and their humorous struggles to survive in San Francisco on Dave's apprentice architect's salary of $85.37 a week...

     (2 episodes, 1966)
  • Summer Fun (1 episode, 1966)
  • The Farmer's Daughter
    The Farmer's Daughter (TV series)
    The Farmer's Daughter is an American situation comedy series that was produced by Screen Gems Television and aired on ABC from September 20, 1963 to April 22, 1966. It was sponsored by Lark cigarettes and Clairol for whom the two leading stars often appeared at show's end promoting the products...

     (1 episode, 1966)
  • Gidget
    Gidget (TV series)
    Gidget is an American sitcom about a surfing, boy-crazy teenager called "Gidget" and her widowed father Russ Lawrence, a UCLA professor. Sally Field stars as Gidget with Don Porter as her father. The series was first broadcast on ABC from September 15, 1965 through April 21, 1966...

     (1 episode, 1966)
  • Hank (1 episode, 1965)

External links

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