Beverlee McKinsey (original) (raw)

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American actress

Beverlee McKinsey
McKinsey as Iris Carrington with Paul Stevens as Brian Bancroft on Another World, 1977
Born	Beverlee Magruder(1935-08-09)August 9, 1935McAlester, Oklahoma, United States
Died	May 2, 2008(2008-05-02) (aged 72)Los Angeles, California, United States
Spouse(s)	Mark McKinsey (1956–1962; divorced)Angus Duncan (1963–1968);Berkeley Harris (1971 – September 17, 1984; by his death)
Children	1

Beverlee McKinsey (August 9, 1935 – May 2, 2008) was an American actress. She is best known for her roles on daytime serials, including Iris Cory Carrington on Another World and the spin-off series Texas from 1972 to 1981 and Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light from 1984 to 1992.

McKinsey was born Beverlee Magruder in McAlester, Oklahoma, on August 9, 1935.[1] She was the daughter of Warren and Jewell Magruder of McAlester.[_citation needed_]

McKinsey graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in Drama. Her professional career began in the New York theater. She understudied the leading role of newlywed Corie in the original Broadway production of Barefoot in the Park and was given the opportunity to perform the role opposite Robert Redford several times. She also co-starred as Honey in the London production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill. She started her career in Off-Broadway theater, often appearing alongside James Earl Jones and Doris Belack.[_citation needed_]

McKinsey moved to Hollywood in the late 1960s, and after several appearances in episodic television shows, she appeared on daytime TV. She played Diana Martin, a reporter, on Love of Life, and was then cast in the contract role of Martha Donnelly/Julie Richards (1970–1971) on Love Is a Many Splendored Thing where she worked with future husband Berkeley Harris.

Daytime television career

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After a brief appearance as Emma Frame on Another World in May 1972, she so impressed then-head writer Harding Lemay that he subsequently cast her in a drastically different role,[_citation needed_] from dowdy Emma to that of manipulative, scheming Iris Carrington. McKinsey played the role from December 1972 to July 1980. During much of her tenure on Another World, McKinsey's portrayal of Iris was part of an unconventional triangle - the character was trying to break up her father Mackenzie Cory and his new wife, Rachel Davis Frame.

McKinsey was made the star of the soap's spin-off series, Texas, which debuted August 4, 1980. She remains one of three actors on daytime television to be given a star billing on a soap opera, the others being Rosemary Prinz of All My Children and How to Survive a Marriage, and Dana Andrews of Bright Promise.[_citation needed_]

After McKinsey left the role of Iris in November 1981, NBC's Texas eventually lost one million viewers in the Nielsen ratings and was canceled in 1982.[_citation needed_]

McKinsey received four Daytime Emmy nominations for her work as Iris.[_citation needed_]

Alexandra Spaulding

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After a hiatus from daytime, Gail Kobe, then executive producer of Guiding Light, lured McKinsey to Guiding Light, on CBS, in February 1984 in the newly created character of wealthy matriarch Baroness Alexandra Spaulding Von Halkein.

As Alexandra, McKinsey's initial work was portraying Alexandra's love for power and the desire to best brother Alan Spaulding, as well as to reclaim the affection, love and approval of Lujack/Nick, her twin sons forcibly taken away from her at birth. Alexandra also cared deeply for her nephews, Phillip and Alan-Michael, but was irritated by Phillip's ex-wives, India and Blake.

While Alexandra could be a snob (and ruthless) at times, she also could let her hair down, as when she went bowling with then-beau H.B. Lewis (Larry Gates). Her ruthlessness was revealed when Alexandra married Roger Thorpe (Michael Zaslow), then subsequently discovered he was involved in an affair with the younger Mindy Lewis. The scene where Alexandra humiliates Roger in public at the Country Club is now considered a Guiding Light classic scene.[2]

In 1992, McKinsey took advantage of an out in her contract, and abruptly left GL. Soap journalist Michael Logan wrote about the turn of events:

Interviewing McKinsey was a dream. There were never any "I just love everyone I work with" cliches. After she exited Guiding Light, McKinsey cited her "not very pleasant" work environment for one of the reasons she chose to leave the daytime serial. Looking at her contract, she discovered she could leave the show after every six-month period. So McKinsey took advantage of the contract the day before her annual eight-week vacation. McKinsey went on permanent vacation. McKinsey adamantly defended her choice to exit the show. Her bosses felt they had been bamboozled. "They're bent out of shape because, for once, somebody beat 'em at their own game," she said. "I had warned Jill (the show's then-executive producer Jill Farren Phelps) – although I don't think she paid attention to me – that I was not happy. I was not happy with the story line." She had confided in Phelps previously that she was frustrated enough to quit, and was told in response that perhaps she should read her contract.

McKinsey later quipped that perhaps it was Phelps and the rest of the Guiding Light production team who should have read the contract. "They didn't read the contract! I read it very closely. I knew every word. The next day, they were all combing over the contract. Somebody said, 'Maybe Beverlee's not familiar with the contract.' Well, of course she was! She wrote it, you bozos. She wrote it! I've had this out clause since 1986. I asked for it and it was P&G that determined how much notice they wanted me to give – and they chose eight weeks."

In addition to her issues with storytelling, which she said would not have motivated her to leave if her working environment had been happier, McKinsey noted that acting had simply stopped being fun for her. "The hours just made me crazy. They were too long," she explained.[3]

She was married three times, and had one son, Scott McKinsey from her marriage to Mark McKinsey. Her son is a director on the soap opera General Hospital (on which she briefly appeared in 1994).

McKinsey married Berkeley Harris, a co-star from Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, in 1971, and cared for him during his illness from terminal brain cancer prior to his death in 1984.

In 1994, she made a brief appearance as Myrna Slaughter on General Hospital. In an interview, she said she took the role to qualify for her medical insurance, but otherwise adamantly considered herself retired from soaps from that moment in 1992 when she last left the set of Guiding Light. She had resisted all entreaties to return to daytime television. After some health issues, including a kidney transplant, McKinsey retired to Southern California and made few public appearances. Michael Logan famously described McKinsey as "[making] Greta Garbo look like a chatterbox!". Logan, TV Guide's soap columnist, once called McKinsey "…the greatest actress ever to grace daytime drama."[_citation needed_]

Beverlee McKinsey died on May 2, 2008, at the Olympic Medical Center in Los Angeles, from complications due to a kidney transplant, which she had undergone in 1998.[4]

Awards and nominations

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1. ^ Beverlee McKinsey, 72, Actress in Decades of Soap Operas, Is Dead; The New York Times, May 9, 2008
2. ^ Video on YouTube
3. ^ SOD (January 22, 2004). "Wanted: GL's Beverlee McKinsey". Soap Opera Digest. United States: American Media, Inc. Archived from the original on November 10, 2020. Retrieved November 10, 2020.
4. ^ Soaps SheKnows (May 2, 2008). "Soap Veteran Beverlee McKinsey Passes Away…". Soaps.com. United States: SheKnows Media. Retrieved March 14, 2019.

• Beverlee McKinsey at IMDb
• Beverlee McKinsey at the Internet Broadway Database
• Beverlee McKinsey at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Beverlee McKinsey Archive
• 1992 TV Guide interview with McKinsey
• Irises: The unofficial Beverlee McKinsey and Carmen Duncan home page
• 'Iris' character bio from Eddie's AW Home Page
• Clips from Texas episodes
• Beverlee McKinsey Tribute from Respectance.com