Caitlin O'Heaney
Encyclopedia
Caitlin O'Heaney is an American TV, film and stage actress. O'Heaney has worked extensively in live theater, but is best known for playing Sarah Stickney White, the female lead on 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...

 series Tales of the Gold Monkey
Tales of the Gold Monkey
Tales of the Gold Monkey is a 1982 television show broadcast by ABC. Most critics saw it as the network's attempt to capitalize on the fame of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark the previous year, in the same vein as Bring 'Em Back Alive on CBS...

in the early 1980s. She also played the first Snow White Charming in ABC's The Charmings
The Charmings
The Charmings is an American fantasy sitcom that aired from March 1987 to February 1988 on ABC.-Synopsis:The opening voice-over set-up the premise:...

in 1987.

Stage career

O'Heaney won a full scholarship to the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 when she was 17, and studied there under Academy Award-winning actor John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...

. Her performances at Juilliard included several classic roles, such as Masha in The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

; Doreen in Tartuffe
Tartuffe
Tartuffe is a comedy by Molière. It is one of his most famous plays.-History:Molière wrote Tartuffe in 1664...

; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

; Mary Boyle in Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock
Juno and the Paycock is a play by Sean O'Casey, and one of the most highly regarded and oft-performed plays in Ireland. It was first staged at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1924...

; Maryanne in Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...

; and Esmeralda in Camino Real
Camino Real (play)
Camino Real is a 1953 play by Tennessee Williams. In the introduction to the Penguin edition of the play, Williams directs the reader to use the Anglicized pronunciation "Cá-mino Réal." The play takes its title from its setting, alluded to El Camino Real, a dead-end place in a Spanish-speaking town...

. She made her off-Broadway debut as Loretta in The Hot House
The Hot House
The Hot House was an Australian reality television series that aired on the Network Ten in 2004. It was hosted by Erika Heynatz.The show featured couples working together to build a dream home on the Queensland's Bribie Island and competed against each other to avoid being eliminated every week...

at the Chelsea Theatre, then remained at the Chelsea to play Finkel in Yentl
Yentl
Yentl is a play by Leah Napolin and Isaac Bashevis Singer.Based on Singer's short story "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," it centers on a young girl who defies tradition by discussing and debating Jewish law and theology with her rabbi father...

and to understudy
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...

 Tovah Feldshuh
Tovah Feldshuh
Tovah Feldshuh is an American actress, singer and playwright.-Early life:Terri Sue Feldshuh was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the daughter of Lillian and Sidney Feldshuh, who was a lawyer. She was raised in Scarsdale, New York, an affluent community in Westchester County and graduated...

 in the title role. She moved to Broadway to understudy the role of Elizabeth in A Matter of Gravity
A Matter of Gravity
A Matter of Gravity is a play by Enid Bagnold.At its center is eccentric dowager Mrs. Basil, who chooses to live in only one room of her Oxford mansion. Her quiet existence is disrupted by the arrival of her grandson Nicky and four of his friends and new cook-housekeeper Dubois, who startles the...

, starring Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

 and co-starring her Juilliard friend and colleague Christopher Reeve
Christopher Reeve
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...

.

O'Heaney relocated to Seattle to appear as Celia in As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...

, Gwendolyn in Travesties
Travesties
Travesties is a play by Tom Stoppard.The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the...

, and Eylie in Ladyhouse Blues at ACT/Seattle, then returned to New York to play the double roles of Belle and Mrs. Cratchit in A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...

at Playwrights Horizon. When A Christmas Carol closed, O'Heaney moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, and five weeks later she was cast as Anna Marie Hollyhock in the 1978 ABC comedy series Apple Pie, which was produced by Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...

, directed by Peter Bonerz
Peter Bonerz
Peter Bonerz is an American actor and director who is best known as the character Dr. Jerry Robinson on The Bob Newhart Show....

, and starred Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan
Rue McClanahan was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on Maude, Fran Crowley on Mama's Family, and Blanche Devereaux on The Golden Girls, for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1987.-Early life:McClanahan was born Eddie Rue...

, Dabney Coleman
Dabney Coleman
Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...

, Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford
Jack Gilford was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.-Early life:Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

, Mike Binder
Mike Binder
Mike Binder is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor.-Life and career:A native of Detroit, Mike Binder grew up in Birmingham, one of the city's suburbs, and attended Camp Tamakwa, which formed the basis for his 1993 film Indian Summer...

 and Richard Libertini
Richard Libertini
Richard Libertini is an American stage, film and television actor known for playing numerous character roles and his ability to speak in numerous accents....

. This was a highlight of O'Heaney's career. She says with regard to the experience, "It was pure magic and incredible fun working everyday with these wonderful people!"

O'Heaney remained in Los Angeles to play fourteen-year-old Bianca in White Marriage at the Odyssey Theatre and won a Drama-Logue Award for Best Actress for the role. She then returned to the East Coast to star as Ersilla Drei in Pirandello's
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...

 Naked at the Syracuse Stage, and performances in Ape Watch at the Mark Taper Forum Lab and in The Brides at the Lenox Art Centre soon followed. She appeared off-Broadway as Olive Lashbrook in the 1940s classic The Voice of the Turtle
The Voice of the Turtle (play)
The Voice of the Turtle is a comedic Broadway play by John William Van Druten dealing with the challenges of the single life in New York City during World War II...

(for which she received a very positive review in the New York Times) and in Scenes and Revelations.

Film and television work

O'Heaney appeared in the television movie The Seeding of Sarah Burns in 1979 and as waitress Lurleen Hamett in ABC's One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...

. She played the female lead, Amy, in the horror feature He Knows You're Alone
He Knows You're Alone
He Knows You're Alone is a 1980 American horror film directed by Armand Mastroianni, written by Scott Parker and edited by George Norris. It was one of the first horror films to be influenced by the success of 1978's Halloween and shares a number of similarities with that previous hit.-Plot:A young...

(1980), which was Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

' first feature film. In 1982, she was cast in the lead female role of Sarah Stickney White in ABC's Tales of the Gold Monkey, also starring Stephen Collins, Roddy McDowall
Roddy McDowall
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...

 and Jeff MacKay
Jeff MacKay
Jeffery Neill MacKay was an American character actor.MacKay is best remembered as Magnum's friend "Mac" on Magnum, P.I., he was also featured in recurring roles in Black Sheep Squadron, JAG, Battlestar Galactica, Airwolf, The Greatest American Hero, and Tales of the Gold...

, and this is among her best known roles. She also appeared as 1930's Hollywood actress Dolores Farrar in Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...

's 1982 film Zelig
Zelig
Zelig is a 1983 American mockumentary film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen plays Zelig, a curiously nondescript enigma who is discovered for his remarkable ability to transform himself to resemble anyone he's near.The film was shot almost entirely in...

, and Allen would cast her again in The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Purple Rose of Cairo is a 1985 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Inspired by Sherlock, Jr., Hellzapoppin, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, it is the tale of a film character who leaves a fictional film of the same name and enters the real...

in 1985. She played Miss Farmer in the 1987 film 3 O'Clock High, which was executive produced by Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

.

Although she was active in television throughout the period, O'Heaney did not appear in any feature films for nearly two decades, then returned in 2002 as Mrs. Woodbridge in The Emperor's Club
The Emperor's Club
The Emperor's Club is a 2002 drama film that tells the story of a prep school teacher and his students. Based on Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief," the film is directed by Michael Hoffman and stars Kevin Kline. The film is set at a fictional boys' prep school, St. Benedict's Academy,...

The film starred Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline
Kevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...

, who was O'Heaney's colleague and friend at Juilliard. She also played Aunt Fran in the 2005 film Brooklyn Lobster
Brooklyn Lobster
Brooklyn Lobster is a 2005 American drama film "presented" by Martin Scorsese and written, produced, and directed by Kevin Jordan. The screenplay is based on Jordan's family's efforts to salvage their Brooklyn-based wholesale and retail seafood operation when the bank defaulted on a loan they had...

, and most recently appeared in the 2007 independent feature Asylum Seekers.

Other work and interests

In the mid-1970s, Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

 offered Caitlin the opportunity to model for him, but Gala, his wife, was not in favor of the project so it was canceled.

O'Heaney lists her interests as the environment, performing as an actress in theatre, film, television, animal rights, writing, music, singing, reading, and the design of fragrance. She used her interest in fragrance to create Caitlin, a cruelty-free fragrance containing gardenia
Gardenia
Gardenia is a genus of 142 species of flowering plants in the coffee family, Rubiaceae, native to the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, southern Asia, Australasia and Oceania....

, apple
Apple
The apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...

, sandalwood
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...

 and patchouli
Patchouli
Patchouli is a species from the genus Pogostemon and a bushy herb of the mint family, with erect stems, reaching two or three feet in height and bearing small, pale pink-white flowers...

. InStyle magazine reported that the fragrance was favored by Naomi Judd
Naomi Judd
Naomi Judd is an American country music singer, songwriter, and activist.-Personal life:She was born Diana Ellen Judd to Charles Glen Judd and his wife Pauline Judd on January 11, 1946, in Ashland, Kentucky. Her father owned a gas station; her mother started out as a homemaker but later became a...

, Rosanna Arquette
Rosanna Arquette
Rosanna Lauren Arquette is an American actress, film director, and producer.-Early life:Arquette was born in New York City, the daughter of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" , an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Her paternal...

, Terri Hatcher and Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...

. Caitlin retailed at Bergdorf Goodman
Bergdorf Goodman
Bergdorf Goodman is a luxury goods department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The company was founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman, and later his son Andrew Goodman....

, Henri Bendel
Henri Bendel
Henri Bendel is an American upscale women's specialty store based in New York City that sells fashion accessories, cosmetics and fragrances, gifts and gourmet foods...

, and Nordstrom
Nordstrom
Nordstrom, Inc. is an upscale department store chain in the United States, founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin. Initially a shoe retailer, the company today also sells clothing, accessories, handbags, jewelry, cosmetics, fragrances, and in some locations, home furnishings...

, among other venues. The fragrance was discontinued when O'Heaney contracted Lyme disease
Lyme disease
Lyme disease, or Lyme borreliosis, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto is the main cause of Lyme disease in the United States, whereas Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii cause most...

 and became unable to run the company, but she still receives requests for it.

In 2006-2007, O'Heaney performed on radio with Air Pirates Radio Theater.

In February 2008, she wrote the music and lyrics for an anti-war environmentalist song titled "Who Have We Freed?" which she recorded with Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

. She and Seeger have performed "Who Have We Freed?" at various environmental/anti-war festivals in and around New York.

O'Heaney is involved with the Blue Horse Repertory Company and works with independent playwrights at Manhattan Theatre Source
Manhattan Theatre Source
The Manhattan Theatre Source is an Off-Off-Broadway not for profit art service organization located in Manhattan near Washington Square Park. A café and art gallery occupy the lower level of "The Source", a 160 year old brick building, while the upper story contains a library and the theatre proper...

 and the National Arts Club
National Arts Club
The National Arts Club is a private club in Gramercy Park, New York City, New York, USA. It was founded in 1898 to "stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts". Since 1906 the organization has occupied the Samuel J...

, both in New York City.

Personal life

O'Heaney was born in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
Whitefish Bay is a village in Milwaukee County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 13,508 as of the 2005 census.-Geography:Whitefish Bay is located at ....

 of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

, Polish, Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

n and German descent. Her great-great-great-grandfather is Jacob Best
Jacob Best
Jacob Best, Sr. was an American brewer who founded what would later become known as the Pabst Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin...

, founder of what became the Pabst Brewing Company
Pabst Brewing Company
Pabst Brewing Company is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and by 1889 named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently the holding company contracting for the brewing of over two dozen brands of beer and malt liquor from defunct companies...

. She had a lengthy relationship with Jared Martin
Jared Martin
Jared Martin is an American film and television actor.-Acting career:Born in Queens, New York to Charles E. Martin a cover artist for The New Yorker, and his wife, Florence, Jared Martin began acting at the age of ten, when his parents gave him the choice of either learning to play the piano, or...

, who played Dusty Farlow on Dallas, and the two remained friendly after their romantic relationship ended. O'Heaney has never married.

Caitlin O'Heaney is said to bear a striking resemblance to the actress Lesley Ann Warren
Lesley Ann Warren
Lesley Ann Warren is an American actress and singer. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Emmy Awards and five times for Golden Globe, winning one....

, with whom she shares a birthday.

External links

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