Facts
Theresa Russell made an auspicious debut as
the daughter of a movie studio head in Elia Kazan's
The Last Tycoon (1976). Raised in Southern California
by her single mother, the alluring, throaty-voiced performer
began posing for provocative photos when
she was barely a teenager. After dropping out of high
school, Russell moved in with a much older man,
a primal scream therapist, whom
she credits for unleashing repressed
feelings that in turn led to her pursuit
of an acting career. Trained in the Method
at the Lee Strasberg Institute, she proved effective in
her early film roles, especially opposite Dustin
Hoffman in Straight Time (1978). Russell
was first directed by her future husband, Nicolas Roeg,
in Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980),
which cast her in the close to autobiographical
role of a young patient who falls under the
sway of a psychiatrist. Russell
has subsequently six more of his films
(to date); she is perhaps best known for
her portrayal
of
a Marilyn Monroe-type figure in
Roeg's Insignificance (1985).
While she seemingly prefers to
work for her husband, Russell
has also delivered several
interesting performances, including the good girl-turned-prostitute
in John Byrum's 1984
remake of The Razor's Edge, as a seductive
serial killer in Bob Rafelson's Black Widow (1987)
and as narcotics detective in Sondra Locke's
Impulse (1990). Perhaps the actress' most
notorious role was the titular Whore
(1991) in Ken Russell's
typically over-the-top examination of the world's
oldest profession. She seemed miscast as Jeremy Irons'
co-worker in Kafka (1992) but was at home in the
dual role of good and evil twins in the BBC TV
production Thicker Than Water (aired in the
USA on A&E in 1994).
More recently, she was teamed with
Jacqueline
Bisset in Once You Meet a
Stranger (CBS, 1996), an unsuccessful
distaff
remake of Hitchcock's
1951 classic
Strangers
on a Train. Russell also played the
formidable mother of Denise Richards
in the neo-noir Wild Things (1998).
