| Celia Weston | |
|---|---|
 ' | |
| Personal Information | |
| Gender: | Female |
| Born: | December 14, 1951 |
| Birthplace: | Spartanburg, South Carolina, U.S. |
| Occupation/ Career: |
Actress |
| Years active: | 1975-present |
| Character/Series involvement | |
| Series: | Alice (TV series) |
| Episodes appeared in: | 90 in series |
| Character played: | Jolene Hunnicutt |
Celia Weston (born December 14, 1951) played the part of former trucker-turned waitress and Mel's Diner employee Jolene Hunnicutt on the hit CBS-TV series Alice.
Career[]
Born and raised in South Carolina, Celia, along with her sister, enjoyed creating their own little world of characters, acting out small skits and later began appearing in local plays. She did not, however, meet the unanimous encouragement of her family when the one-time art and psychology major at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina[1], decided to do an abrupt about-face and study acting. She earned an Artist Diploma in Drama at the North Carolina School of the Arts before moving to London to continue her training.
More than determined, she eventually returned to the States in 1977 and studied with Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof while slinging hash herself in New York City. In between, there was sporadic regional and off-off-Broadway work along with summer stock. At age 28, Celia made a big leap with her Broadway debut in the film Loose Ends (1979) starring Kevin Kline. Following her prime theater role in Edward Albee's The Lady from Dubuque in 1980 and a small part in Clint Eastwood's film Honky Tonk Freeway (1981), Hollywood showed her the money when she became the new Southern-fried waitress in town alongside Linda Lavin and Beth Howland on the "Alice" series.
Her character of Jolene was given rather short shrift during the four seasons (1981-1985) she appeared. Although Celia valiantly tried the invest the role with some spunk and sass, she was the newcomer and was too often overshadowed by the other two. Following the show's demise, she had a number of lean years before her luck changed again. In 1988, she was handed a couple of featured roles in the movies Stars and Bars (1988) and A New Life (1988). Her penchant for toned-down, unaffected realism was not overlooked.
While interspersing theater roles with the sudden upswing of film parts now coming her way, she finally came into her own in both venues in the mid-to-late 1990s. After earning critical applause for her brittle dramatic turn as the backwoods mother of a murdered child in Dead Man Walking (1995), she went on to win an Outer Critics Award and Tony nomination for her Southern matron in Broadway's acclaimed The Last Night of Ballyhoo (1997). She also made appearances in the films The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), In The Bedroom (2001), Hulk (2003), The Village (2004) Freak Show (2017) and Poms (2019).
References[]
- ↑ Celia Weston. TV Guide. Retrieved on 2 January 2015.
External links[]
Celia Weston at the Internet Movie Database- Celia Weston article at Wikipedia
