1968 Ellen Weston: Adorable Star and Poor Soul?
Hollywood—Would you believe Ellen Weston is a showgirl? Would you believe .. . a chemist? Would you believe Ellen Weston is Dr. Steele? Would you believe Dr. Steele is a showgirl? A chemist? Would you believe Ellen Weston portrays Dr. Steele, chemist for CONTROL, employing a showgirl cover, on NBC - Channel 40's Get Smart series Saturdays? You better believe it, even though Ellen still finds it hard to believe.
"Talent Associates was casting for a pilot and sent for me recently," said Ellen. "Somehow nobody knew anything about it when I showed up and a secretary suggested I try for the new role on 'Get Smart.' She said it was a woman scientist using a showgirl cover. I said, -'Forget it.' I felt I wasn't the sexy type." Talent Associates thought otherwise and she got the part. "I brought up the matter of the pilot but they refused to consider me," Ellen laughed.They said I was just too sexy—after they created the image. Now they believed it themselves."
Ellen was born in New York where she lived until a year and a half ago when she and her husband, Ami Hadani (owner of a recording studio), moved to Hollywood. They have a baby boy, Jonathan. "We just bought an old house," said Ellen. "I love it. because it has a past. We brought a lot of antiques with us—I love them. "When I polish the furniture I wonder how many others polished the same wood. "When we were in Israel recently a colosseum had just been excavated at Caesaria. It was so fresh that tourists hadn't wiped off the ancient footprints yet. It was thrilling. I thought, 'Here I stand where Caesar "stood.' If I could, I would live in a palace that's centuries old. We don't learn anything by tearing things up."
Ellen, who had a drama scholarship, majored in speech therapy while attending Hofstra University, Hunter College and New York University. She left college in her senior year to work as an actress but completed her work for a BA degree two years later. "I was determined that a child of mine would never say to me, 'But you didn't finish college,'" said Ellen, who is seriously considering going for a PhD at UCLA. So far acting has claimed her life. She spent a year on daytime TV as Robin in Guiding Light and five months as Karen in Another World. She's done such nighttime TV as Bewitched, N.Y.P.D. and Run for Your Life. She appeared on Broadway in such long-running plays as "A Far Country" and "Mary Mary." When Ellen was a child she used to daydream that she was a twin. "One was always the adorable, well-loved star," said Ellen. "The other was the poor soul, the nebbish. Show business always seemed so untouchable, like Cinderella. "But I also always felt instictively that there was something destructive about it and I sensed some imminent danger in wanting it badly. I never dared to dream of myself as a star." And so she became a twin. Like Dr. Steele, she found a cover.
By
Paul Raven ·
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