Dana Hill
Encyclopedia
Dana Hill was an American
actress and voice actor with a raspy voice and childlike appearance, which allowed her to play adolescent roles into her 30s. Hill is perhaps best known for playing Audrey Griswold in National Lampoon's European Vacation
and Sherry Dunlap in Shoot the Moon
.
center Dave Cowens
). However, to avoid the appearance of nepotism, she took her mother's maiden name as her stage name and devoted herself to acting as a career. She appeared in guest roles on such programs as Family
before landing a major role on the 1981–1982 CBS series The Two Of Us, as Gabrielle "Gabby" Gallagher for the 20-episode run of the series. While filming this series the 17-year-old Hill would sometimes be pulled over by the police while driving to the studio, because she looked too young to drive.
Her breakthrough role was in the 1981 made-for-TV movie Fallen Angel
. The 17-year-old Hill played 12-year-old molestation victim Jennifer Phillips, a role which earned her a Young Artist Award
in the category Best Young Actress in a Television Special.
Hill later played Sherry Dunlap, the daughter of Albert Finney
and Diane Keaton
in Shoot the Moon
(1982). That same year, she played Frankie Addams, the lead character in the made-for-TV adaptation of The Member of the Wedding
, co-starring with Pearl Bailey
. In 1983 she starred with Rip Torn
and Mary Steenburgen
in the film Cross Creek
, a semi-biographical story about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
, author of The Yearling
. She also appeared on a 1983 episode of Magnum, P.I.
(entitled "Basket Case").
At age 19 she starred in a 1984 CBS Schoolbreak Special
called Welcome Home, Jellybean
, playing Geraldine "Jellybean" Oxley, a 12-year-old developmentally disabled girl whose parents decide to take their daughter out of the institution she had been housed in, so she could experience a normal home life. The same year, she appeared in Shelley Duvall
's 1980s children's TV series Faerie Tale Theatre
, playing The Princess, in an episode called "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers".
were looking to make a sequel, but Anthony Michael Hall
declined to reprise his role as son Rusty Griswold, choosing instead to do the film Weird Science
. The producers decided to recast the roles of both Griswold children, and so for National Lampoon's European Vacation
, Hill was chosen to replace the original actress who portrayed Audrey, Dana Barron
.
Hill appeared as Sergeant Andrea Pritchett alongside George Clooney
in Combat Academy (also known as Combat High), a 1986 film from the producers of Police Academy. After playing Francy in the 1991 made-for-TV courtroom movie Final Verdict, her final film role was a bit part ("Wife at Motel") in the 1994 baseball movie, Cobb
.
. She also provided the voice of Toots in the Pound Puppies
episode, The Bright Eyes Mob. She was Teddy-2 in Jetsons: The Movie
(1990); from 1989-1991 she voiced Buddy on the animated children's television show Gummi Bears, and in 1992-1993 was the voice of Max
on Goof Troop
. Her voice was featured as Jerry Mouse
in Tom and Jerry: The Movie
, and Charles on Duckman
. as well as numerous characters in the Nickelodeon
show, Rugrats
. She was also a semi-regular panelist on the 1990s version of To Tell the Truth
.
in May 1996 and suffered a massive paralytic stroke
the following month. On July 15, 1996, Hill died, aged 32. She was cremated and her ashes are kept in a private location.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress and voice actor with a raspy voice and childlike appearance, which allowed her to play adolescent roles into her 30s. Hill is perhaps best known for playing Audrey Griswold in National Lampoon's European Vacation
National Lampoon's European Vacation
European Vacation is a 1985 comedy film. The second film in National Lampoon's Vacation film series, it was directed by Amy Heckerling and stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Dana Hill and Jason Lively replace Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall as Griswold children Audrey and Rusty...
and Sherry Dunlap in Shoot the Moon
Shoot the Moon
Shoot the Moon is the title of the fourth album by singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, released in April 1982. It was Tzuke's first album for Chrysalis Records, after leaving Elton John's label Rocket Records...
.
Early health issues
Dana Lynne Goetz was born in 1964 to Sandy Hill and Ted Goetz. Her father was a director of commercials. A diagnosis of Type I diabetes at an early age ended a promising athletic future. A 1982 article in People Magazine reported that at age 10 Hill had placed third nationwide in the 880-yard run and fourth in the mile run. A few weeks later she collapsed on the track, which led to the diagnosis. The diabetes stunted her growth (at 18 she was 5' 0" and 82 pounds) and caused life-long health complications for Hill.Teen years
Hill's initial work in commercials was via her father's influence (her first job was a 1973 commercial for the YMCA, spinning a basketball on her finger with then-Boston CelticsBoston Celtics
The Boston Celtics are a National Basketball Association team based in Boston, Massachusetts. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. Founded in 1946, the team is currently owned by Boston Basketball Partners LLC. The Celtics play their home games at the TD Garden, which...
center Dave Cowens
Dave Cowens
David William Cowens is a retired American professional basketball player and NBA head coach. At 6'9", he played the center and occasionally the power forward position. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991...
). However, to avoid the appearance of nepotism, she took her mother's maiden name as her stage name and devoted herself to acting as a career. She appeared in guest roles on such programs as Family
Family (TV series)
Family is an American television drama series that aired on ABC from 1976 to 1980. Creative control of the show was split between executive producers Leonard Goldberg, Aaron Spelling and Mike Nichols...
before landing a major role on the 1981–1982 CBS series The Two Of Us, as Gabrielle "Gabby" Gallagher for the 20-episode run of the series. While filming this series the 17-year-old Hill would sometimes be pulled over by the police while driving to the studio, because she looked too young to drive.
Her breakthrough role was in the 1981 made-for-TV movie Fallen Angel
Fallen Angel (1981 film)
Fallen Angel is a 1981 made-for-TV film directed by Robert Michael Lewis and written by Lew Hunter, exploring pedophilia and starring Dana Hill, Melinda Dillon, Richard Masur and Ronny Cox. It is a Green/Epstein Production in association with Columbia Pictures Television...
. The 17-year-old Hill played 12-year-old molestation victim Jennifer Phillips, a role which earned her a Young Artist Award
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award is an accolade bestowed by the Young Artist Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1978 to recognize and award excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young artists who may be physically and/or financially challenged.The Young Artist...
in the category Best Young Actress in a Television Special.
Hill later played Sherry Dunlap, the daughter of Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
and Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton
Diane Keaton is an American film actress, director, producer, and screenwriter. Keaton began her career on stage, and made her screen debut in 1970...
in Shoot the Moon
Shoot the Moon
Shoot the Moon is the title of the fourth album by singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke, released in April 1982. It was Tzuke's first album for Chrysalis Records, after leaving Elton John's label Rocket Records...
(1982). That same year, she played Frankie Addams, the lead character in the made-for-TV adaptation of The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding
The Member of the Wedding is a 1946 novel by Southern writer Carson McCullers. It took McCullers five years to complete—though she interrupted the work for a few months to write the short novel The Ballad of the Sad Cafe....
, co-starring with Pearl Bailey
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968...
. In 1983 she starred with Rip Torn
Rip Torn
Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn, Jr. , is an American actor of stage, screen and television.Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film Cross Creek. His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on The Larry Sanders Show, for which he was nominated...
and Mary Steenburgen
Mary Steenburgen
Mary Nell Steenburgen is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Lynda Dummar in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard, which earned her an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.-Early life:...
in the film Cross Creek
Cross Creek (film)
Cross Creek is a 1983 film starring Mary Steenburgen as The Yearling author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The film is directed by Martin Ritt and is based, in part, on Rawlings' 1942 memoir, Cross Creek.-Plot:...
, a semi-biographical story about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie, also known as The...
, author of The Yearling
The Yearling
The Yearling is a 1946 Technicolor family film drama made by MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Paul Osborn and John Lee Mahin , adapted from the novel of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...
. She also appeared on a 1983 episode of Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I. is an American television series starring Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, a private investigator living on Oahu, Hawaii. The series ran from 1980 to 1988 in first-run broadcast on the American CBS television network....
(entitled "Basket Case").
At age 19 she starred in a 1984 CBS Schoolbreak Special
CBS Schoolbreak Special
CBS Schoolbreak Special is an American anthology series for teenagers that aired on CBS from April 1980 to January 1996. The series originally premiered under the title CBS Afternoon Playhouse, and was later changed during the 1984 - 85 season...
called Welcome Home, Jellybean
Welcome Home, Jellybean
Welcome Home, Jellybean is a 1978 novel written by Marlene Fanta Shyer. It is about a family who bring their mentally challenged daughter home from an institution, and have to adjust to life with her around. In 1984, it was made into a CBS Schoolbreak Special. It starred Christopher Collet as Neil...
, playing Geraldine "Jellybean" Oxley, a 12-year-old developmentally disabled girl whose parents decide to take their daughter out of the institution she had been housed in, so she could experience a normal home life. The same year, she appeared in Shelley Duvall
Shelley Duvall
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American film and television actress best known for her roles in The Shining, Popeye, Thieves Like Us and 3 Women....
's 1980s children's TV series Faerie Tale Theatre
Faerie Tale Theatre
Faerie Tale Theatre is a live-action children's television anthology series retelling popular fairy tales. Shelley Duvall serves as narrator, host and executive producer of the program, and occasionally stars in episodes...
, playing The Princess, in an episode called "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers".
Film roles
In 1985, the producers of the 1983 movie National Lampoon's VacationNational Lampoon's Vacation
Vacation, sometimes referred as National Lampoon's Vacation, is a 1983 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Randy Quaid, Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall...
were looking to make a sequel, but Anthony Michael Hall
Anthony Michael Hall
Michael Anthony Hall , known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor, film producer and director who starred in several teen-oriented films of the 1980s. Hall began his career in commercials and on stage as a child, and made his screen debut in 1980...
declined to reprise his role as son Rusty Griswold, choosing instead to do the film Weird Science
Weird Science (film)
Weird Science is a 1985 American teen comedy film written and directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, and Kelly LeBrock...
. The producers decided to recast the roles of both Griswold children, and so for National Lampoon's European Vacation
National Lampoon's European Vacation
European Vacation is a 1985 comedy film. The second film in National Lampoon's Vacation film series, it was directed by Amy Heckerling and stars Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Dana Hill and Jason Lively replace Dana Barron and Anthony Michael Hall as Griswold children Audrey and Rusty...
, Hill was chosen to replace the original actress who portrayed Audrey, Dana Barron
Dana Barron
Dana Barron is an American actress who has starred in film and on television. Barron is best known for her role as the original Audrey Griswold in the 1983 film National Lampoon's Vacation which she reprised in 2003's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure for NBC television.-Early...
.
Hill appeared as Sergeant Andrea Pritchett alongside George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
in Combat Academy (also known as Combat High), a 1986 film from the producers of Police Academy. After playing Francy in the 1991 made-for-TV courtroom movie Final Verdict, her final film role was a bit part ("Wife at Motel") in the 1994 baseball movie, Cobb
Cobb (film)
Cobb is a 1994 biopic starring Tommy Lee Jones as the famed baseball player Ty Cobb. It was written and directed by Ron Shelton and was based on a book by Al Stump...
.
Voice actor
Beginning in 1987, she provided the voice for Scrappy, the orphan mouse, on eight episodes of Mighty Mouse: The New AdventuresMighty Mouse: The New Adventures
Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures is a 1987 revival of the classic Mighty Mouse cartoon character. Produced by Bakshi-Hyde Ventures , it aired on CBS on Saturday mornings from fall 1987 through the 1988-89 season...
. She also provided the voice of Toots in the Pound Puppies
Pound Puppies
Pound Puppies is a toyline sold by Tonka in the 1980s. It later inspired an animated TV special, an animated TV series, and a feature film. Shipments of the toys over five years generated sales of $300 million in 35 countries....
episode, The Bright Eyes Mob. She was Teddy-2 in Jetsons: The Movie
Jetsons: The Movie
Jetsons: The Movie is a 1990 animated science fiction film produced by Hanna-Barbera and released on July 6, 1990, by Universal Pictures based on the hit cartoon series, The Jetsons . The movie features the final voice roles of George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc who both died during production of the film...
(1990); from 1989-1991 she voiced Buddy on the animated children's television show Gummi Bears, and in 1992-1993 was the voice of Max
Max Goof
Max Goof is a fictional character who is the teenage son of the popular Disney character Goofy. He first appeared in the 1992 television series Goof Troop...
on Goof Troop
Goof Troop
Disney's Goof Troop is an American animated television series from The Walt Disney Company featuring Goofy as a father figure and bonding with his son Max.-Premise:...
. Her voice was featured as Jerry Mouse
Jerry Mouse
Jerry Mouse is a fictional animated character, one of the main characters in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoon short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Jerry is a brown anthropomorphic mouse, who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss...
in Tom and Jerry: The Movie
Tom and Jerry: The Movie
Tom and Jerry: The Movie is a 1992 American animated musical film directed by Phil Roman, and produced by Film Roman and Turner Pictures. It is a film adaptation of the Tom and Jerry series of theatrical shorts....
, and Charles on Duckman
Duckman
Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man is an American animated sitcom that aired from 1994–1997, created by Everett Peck and developed by Peck. The sitcom is based on characters created by Peck in his Dark Horse comic...
. as well as numerous characters in the Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (TV channel)
Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
show, Rugrats
Rugrats
Rugrats is an American animated television series created by Arlene Klasky, Gábor Csupó, and Paul Germain for Nickelodeon. The series premiered on August 11, 1991, and aired its last episode on June 8, 2004....
. She was also a semi-regular panelist on the 1990s version of To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth
To Tell the Truth is an American television panel game show created by Bob Stewart and produced by Goodson-Todman Productions that has aired in various forms since 1956 both on networks and in syndication...
.
Death
Hill slipped into a diabetic comaDiabetic coma
Diabetic coma is a reversible form of coma found in people with diabetes mellitus. It is a medical emergency.Three different types of diabetic coma are identified:#Severe diabetic hypoglycemia...
in May 1996 and suffered a massive paralytic stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
the following month. On July 15, 1996, Hill died, aged 32. She was cremated and her ashes are kept in a private location.
External links
- Dana Hill at Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...