Melody Anderson
Encyclopedia
Melody Anderson is a Canadian American social work
er and public speaker specializing in the impact of addiction
on families. She is also known as an actress, with her most high-profile role being Dale Arden
in the 1980 adaptation
of Flash Gordon
. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Anderson started off as a performer and entertainer. She made her debut at age five on a radio show. While doing singing, she also trained as an actress, leading to roles in films and television during the 1970s and 1980s.
in 1977. She made numerous guest appearances on television in the 1980s, in series such as Archie Bunker's Place
, Battlestar Galactica
, Dallas
, T. J. Hooker
, and The Fall Guy
. She had recurring roles on St. Elsewhere
and Jake and the Fatman
. She was a cast member of Manimal
, and All My Children
in the 1990s.
In 1983, Anderson also played the title role in a made-for-TV film called Policewoman Centerfold, in which her character, a divorced police officer, is fired after posing nude for a men's magazine (based loosely on the true story of Springfield, Ohio
patrolwoman Barbara Schantz
, who was subsequently fired from her job after posing nude in Playboy
magazine in the early 1980s). She also starred in the 1986 made for television movie, Beverly Hills Madam. She starred as Edie Adams
in the TV film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter, opposite Jeff Goldblum
as Ernie Kovacs
. Her last television appearance was a 1995 guest appearance in the short-lived CBS revival of Burke's Law
.
Anderson has made appearances at genre conventions, such as the October 2009 Big Apple Convention
in Manhattan
.
New York, treating family and friends of substance abusers. A 2006 biography (from the Dragon Con
website) notes she is in private practice
in New York City, working on a book for parents with kids who use drugs and alcohol.
Anderson holds a Master of Arts
in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research, a Master of Science
from Columbia University
and a Doctorate in Social Welfare from Yeshiva University
. She has also studied criminal justice. Her studies focused on trauma, hypnosis and cognitive and psychoanalytical therapies, and is an expert in trauma-related disorders. She has also taught graduate university courses on substance abuse and other mental health-related areas of study. Anderson founded the first licensed mental health facility and social services agency in the United States focused on the psychological needs of midlife and older women. She has assisted non-profit organizations, corporations and social service government agencies.
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
er and public speaker specializing in the impact of addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
on families. She is also known as an actress, with her most high-profile role being Dale Arden
Dale Arden
Dale Arden is a fictional character, the fellow-adventurer and love interest of Flash Gordon and a prototypic heroine for later female characters, including Princess Leia Organa and Padme Amidala in Star Wars. Flash, Dale and Dr...
in the 1980 adaptation
1980 in film
- Events :* May 21 - Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released and is the biggest grosser of the year ....
of Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon (film)
Flash Gordon is a 1980 British/American science fiction film, based on the comic strip of the same name created by Alex Raymond. The film was directed by Mike Hodges and produced and presented by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Brian...
. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Anderson started off as a performer and entertainer. She made her debut at age five on a radio show. While doing singing, she also trained as an actress, leading to roles in films and television during the 1970s and 1980s.
Acting
Her first national exposure came as a "sweathog" in an episode of Welcome Back, KotterWelcome 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:...
in 1977. She made numerous guest appearances on television in the 1980s, in series such as Archie Bunker's Place
Archie Bunker's Place
Archie Bunker's Place is an American sitcom originally broadcast on the CBS network, conceived in 1979 as a spin-off and continuation of All in the Family. While not as popular as its predecessor, the show maintained a large enough audience to last for four seasons, until its cancellation in 1983...
, Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction television series, created by Glen A. Larson. It starred Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch and Dirk Benedict and ran for one season in 1978–79. After cancellation, its story was continued in 1980 as Galactica 1980 with Adama, Lieutenant Boomer and...
, Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
, T. J. Hooker
T. J. Hooker
T.J. Hooker is an American police drama television program starring William Shatner in the title role as a 15-year veteran police sergeant. The series premiered as a mid-season replacement on March 13, 1982 on ABC and ran on the network until May 4, 1985...
, and The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is an American action/adventure television program produced for ABC and originally broadcast from November 4, 1981 to May 2, 1986. It starred Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas. Majors and Barr are the only two actors to appear in all 112 episodes of the series...
. She had recurring roles on St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere
St. Elsewhere is an American medical drama television series that originally ran on NBC from October 26, 1982 to May 25, 1988. The series is set at fictional St. Eligius, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood...
and Jake and the Fatman
Jake and the Fatman
Jake and the Fatman is a television crime drama starring William Conrad as prosecutor J. L. "Fatman" McCabe and Joe Penny as investigator Jake Styles. The series ran on CBS for five seasons from 1987 to 1992. Diagnosis: Murder was a spin-off of this series...
. She was a cast member of Manimal
Manimal
Manimal is an American action–adventure series that ran from September 30 to December 17, 1983 on NBC. The show centers on the character Dr Jonathan Chase , a shape-shifting man who possessed the ability to turn himself into any animal he chose...
, and All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
in the 1990s.
In 1983, Anderson also played the title role in a made-for-TV film called Policewoman Centerfold, in which her character, a divorced police officer, is fired after posing nude for a men's magazine (based loosely on the true story of Springfield, Ohio
Springfield, Ohio
Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River, Buck Creek and Beaver Creek, approximately west of Columbus and northeast of Dayton. Springfield is home to Wittenberg...
patrolwoman Barbara Schantz
Barbara Schantz
Barbara Schantz was a police officer in Springfield, Ohio when she appeared nude in the May 1982 issue of Playboy. Her pictorial was photographed by staff photographer Pompeo Posar. She was born in Enon, Ohio. According to the text accompanying the pictorial, she married at 17, divorced less than...
, who was subsequently fired from her job after posing nude in Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
magazine in the early 1980s). She also starred in the 1986 made for television movie, Beverly Hills Madam. She starred as Edie Adams
Edie Adams
Edie Adams was an American singer, Broadway, television and film actress and comedienne. Adams, a Tony Award winner, "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde." She was well-known for her impersonations of female stars on stage and television, most...
in the TV film Ernie Kovacs: Between the Laughter, opposite Jeff Goldblum
Jeff Goldblum
Jeffrey Lynn "Jeff" Goldblum is an American actor. His career began in the mid-1970s and he has appeared in major box-office successes including The Fly, Jurassic Park and its sequel Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and Independence Day...
as Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs
Ernie Kovacs was a Hungarian American comedian and actor.Kovacs' uninhibited, often ad-libbed, and visually experimental comedic style came to influence numerous television comedy programs for years after his death in an automobile accident...
. Her last television appearance was a 1995 guest appearance in the short-lived CBS revival of Burke's Law
Burke's Law
Burke's Law is a detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud...
.
Anderson has made appearances at genre conventions, such as the October 2009 Big Apple Convention
Big Apple Convention
The Big Apple Comic Con is a Manhattan comic book convention started by Michael Carbonaro in 1996 in the basement of the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Manhattan. It was originally named Big Apple Convention. It has grown into the longest-running comic book, science fiction/fantasy/horror/pop...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Social work
Anderson graduated from New York University School of Social Work in 1997. That same year, she was the Coordinator of Family Services at HazeldenHazelden
The Hazelden Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Center City, Minnesota. Hazelden has alcohol and drug treatment facilities in Minnesota ; Newberg, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; Naples, Florida and New York City, New York...
New York, treating family and friends of substance abusers. A 2006 biography (from the Dragon Con
Dragon Con
Dragon*Con is a North America multigenre convention, founded in 1987, which takes place once each year in Atlanta, Georgia...
website) notes she is in private practice
Medical practice
A medical practice or practice of medicine is the practice of medicine, as performed by a medical practitioner—a physician...
in New York City, working on a book for parents with kids who use drugs and alcohol.
Anderson holds a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School of Social Research, a Master of Science
Master of Science
A Master of Science is a postgraduate academic master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in the sciences including the social sciences.-Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay:...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and a Doctorate in Social Welfare from Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
. She has also studied criminal justice. Her studies focused on trauma, hypnosis and cognitive and psychoanalytical therapies, and is an expert in trauma-related disorders. She has also taught graduate university courses on substance abuse and other mental health-related areas of study. Anderson founded the first licensed mental health facility and social services agency in the United States focused on the psychological needs of midlife and older women. She has assisted non-profit organizations, corporations and social service government agencies.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Flash Gordon Flash Gordon (film) Flash Gordon is a 1980 British/American science fiction film, based on the comic strip of the same name created by Alex Raymond. The film was directed by Mike Hodges and produced and presented by Dino De Laurentiis. It stars Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Brian... |
Dale Arden Dale Arden Dale Arden is a fictional character, the fellow-adventurer and love interest of Flash Gordon and a prototypic heroine for later female characters, including Princess Leia Organa and Padme Amidala in Star Wars. Flash, Dale and Dr... |
|
| 1981 | Dead & Buried Dead & Buried Dead & Buried is a 1981 horror film directed by Gary Sherman, starring Melody Anderson and James Farentino. With a screenplay written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, the movie was initially banned as a "Video Nasty" in the UK in the early 80s, but was later acquitted of obscenity charges and... |
Janet Gillis | aka Dead and Buried (UK) |
| 1983 | Manimal Manimal Manimal is an American action–adventure series that ran from September 30 to December 17, 1983 on NBC. The show centers on the character Dr Jonathan Chase , a shape-shifting man who possessed the ability to turn himself into any animal he chose... |
Brooke Mackenzie | TV series |
| 1986 | Dulcie | aka Race des champions, La (Canada: French title) | |
| 1986 | Firewalker Firewalker (film) Firewalker is a 1986 action/adventure B-movie starring Chuck Norris, Louis Gossett, Jr., Will Sampson and Melody Anderson. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson and written by Norman Aladjem, Robert Gosnell and Jeffrey M. Rosenbaum... |
Patricia Goodwin | |
| 1989 | Speed Zone! Speed Zone! Speed Zone!, also known as Cannonball Run III or simply Cannonball Fever, released in 1989, is the third and final installment of the Cannonball Run series of movies. Like the first two films, it is a comedy set around an illegal cross-country race... |
Lea Roberts | aka Cannonball Fever (Australia) |
| 1991 | Under Surveillance | ||
| 1992 | Landslide | Clair Trinavant |
External links
- Biography from the website of a speakers bureau
- Biography from the Dragon ConDragon ConDragon*Con is a North America multigenre convention, founded in 1987, which takes place once each year in Atlanta, Georgia...
2006 website