Ann Prentiss

Ann Prentiss

Born: November 27, 1939
Died: January 12, 2010
in San Antonio, Texas, USA
Ann Prentiss (November 27, 1939 – January 12, 2010) was an American actress. She was born Ann Elizabeth Ragusa in San Antonio, Texas, to Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa. Her father was of Sicilian descent. Her elder sister, Paula Prentiss, is also an actress. Prentiss had many supporting roles in films and television series in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including Get Smart's "The Little Black Book", Hogan's Heroes' "The Missing Klink" (1969), and Baretta's "Half a Million Dollar Baby". She provided the voice of an alien species in the comedy film My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), co-starring alongside Kim Basinger and Dan Aykroyd. Her other film roles included appearances in Any Wednesday (1966), If He Hollers, Let Him Go! (1968), The Out-of-Towners (1970), and California Split (1974), opposite George Segal and Elliott Gould. Ann Prentiss was convicted in a California court of a 1996 assault against her father and a subsequent threat against members of her family. The district attorney claimed that Prentiss, while incarcerated on the assault charge, had attempted to hire another inmate to kill three people, including her father and actor/director Richard Benjamin, the husband of her sister. On July 23, 1997, the court sentenced her to 19 years in prison. Prentiss died on January 12, 2010, while serving her prison sentence.

Movies for Ann Prentiss...

My Stepmother Is an Alien
Title: My Stepmother Is an Alien
Character: The Voice of the Bag (voice)
Released: December 9, 1988
Type: Movie
Trying to rescue her home planet from destruction, a gorgeous extraterrestrial named Celeste arrives on Earth and begins her scientific research. She woos quirky scientist Dr. Steve Mills, a widower with a young daughter. Before long, Celeste finds herself in love with Steve and her new life on Earth, where she experiences true intimacy for the first time. But when she loses sight of her mission, she begins to question where she belongs.
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Title: Masquerade
Character: Mavis Kelly
Released: December 15, 1983
Type: TV
Masquerade is an American espionage television series that aired for a few months on ABC in the spring of 1983.
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Title: Quark
Character: Gene / Jean (voice) (uncredited)
Released: May 7, 1977
Type: TV
Quark is an American science fiction situation comedy starring Richard Benjamin broadcast on NBC. The pilot first aired on May 7, 1977, and the series followed as a mid-season replacement in February 1978. The series was cancelled in April 1978. Quark was created by Buck Henry, co-creator of the spy spoof Get Smart. The show was set on a United Galaxy Sanitation Patrol Cruiser, an interstellar garbage scow operating out of United Galaxies Space Station Perma One in the year 2226. Adam Quark, the main character, works to clean up trash in space by collecting "space baggies" with his trusted and highly unusual crew. In its short run, Quark satirized such science fiction as Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Flash Gordon. Three of the episodes were direct satires of Star Trek episodes. The series won one Emmy Award nomination, for costume designer Grady Hunt's work in the episode "All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms, Part 2". The complete series was released on DVD on October 14, 2008.
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Title: Starsky & Hutch
Character: Mrs. Carston
Released: September 10, 1975
Type: TV
Streetwise Detective David Starsky partners up with a more intellectual partner, Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, to protect citizens and patrol the streets of Bay City.
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Title: Switch
Character: Cora
Released: September 9, 1975
Type: TV
Switch is an American action-adventure, tongue-in-cheek detective series starring Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner, who work as private eyes, for a deceptive sting operation. It was broadcast on the CBS network for three seasons between September 9, 1975 and August 20, 1978, bumping the Hawaii Five-O detective series to Friday nights.
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Title: Baretta
Character: Annie
Released: January 17, 1975
Type: TV
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title role.
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California Split
Title: California Split
Character: Barbara Miller
Released: August 7, 1974
Type: Movie
Carefree single guy Charlie Waters rooms with two lovely prostitutes, Barbara Miller and Susan Peters, and lives to gamble. Along with his glum betting buddy, Bill Denny, Charlie sets out on a gambling streak in search of the ever-elusive big payday. While Charlie and Bill have some lucky moments, they also have to contend with serious setbacks that threaten to derail their hedonistic betting binge.
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The Lie
Title: The Lie
Character: Elaine Fredericks
Released: April 24, 1973
Type: Movie
An Ingmar Bergman script. Produced for Swedish Television as "Reservatet" (1970) and for BBC as "The Lie" (1971). An American couple is trapped in their marriage and way of life. Locked up in their bourgeois inferno.
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Title: Search
Character: Ann Mulligan
Released: September 13, 1972
Type: TV
Search is an American science fiction series that aired on Wednesday nights on NBC at 10 pm ET, from September 1972 to August 1973. It ran for 23 episodes, not including the two-hour pilot film originally titled Probe. When picked up for series production, the title had to be changed because Probe was the name of an existing PBS series. In the UK the series aired on BBC 1 under the title Search Control. The show was created by Leslie Stevens, and produced by Leslie Stevens, Robert Justman, John Strong and Tony Spinner. The high concept was described as "science fiction in today's world" and the episodes featured many high-tech elements which are considered common in current science fiction shows.
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Title: Emergency!
Character: Fran Lillington
Released: January 22, 1972
Type: TV
The crew of Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 51, particularly the paramedic team, and Rampart Hospital respond to emergencies in their operating area.
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Title: Emergency!
Character: Cindy's Mother
Released: January 22, 1972
Type: TV
The crew of Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 51, particularly the paramedic team, and Rampart Hospital respond to emergencies in their operating area.
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The Out-of-Towners
Title: The Out-of-Towners
Character: Airline Stewardess
Released: May 28, 1970
Type: Movie
George & Gwen Kellerman make a trip to New York, where George is going to start a new job, it turns out to be a trip to hell.
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Title: McCloud
Character: Officer Murdock
Released: February 17, 1970
Type: TV
Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud of the small western town of Taos, New Mexico is assigned to the metropolitan New York City Police Department (NYPD) as a special investigator.
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In Name Only
Title: In Name Only
Character: Jill Willis
Released: November 25, 1969
Type: Movie
In this romantic comedy, an unwed couple who run a wedding planning business discover, to their horror, that the Justice of the Peace who had officiated their first three weddings was only an actor. Hilarity ensues as they set about trying to get these marrieds married...again.
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Title: Love, American Style
Character: Yvonne
Released: September 29, 1969
Type: TV
An anthology comedy series featuring a line up of different celebrity guest stars appearing in anywhere from one, two, three, and four short stories or vignettes within an hour about versions of love and romance.
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Title: The Courtship of Eddie's Father
Character: Kerry Allen
Released: September 17, 1969
Type: TV
The Courtship of Eddie's Father is an American television sitcom based on the 1963 movie of the same name, which was based on the book written by Mark Toby. It tells the story of a widower, Tom Corbett, who is a magazine publisher, and his son, Eddie, who believes his father should marry, and manipulates situations surrounding the women his father is interested in. ABC had acquired the rights to the story; the series debuted on September 17, 1969, and was last broadcast on March 1, 1972. Bixby received an Emmy nomination for the show.
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If He Hollers, Let Him Go!
Title: If He Hollers, Let Him Go!
Character: Thelma Wilson
Released: October 8, 1968
Type: Movie
James Lake (Raymond St. Jacques) is an escaped black convict imprisoned for a murder he didn't commit. Leslie Whitlock (Kevin McCarthy) offers James money to kill his wife, Ellen (Dana Wynter). He declines and tries to look up his old flame Lily (Barbara McNair), but discovers his own brother is now married to the sultry nightclub singer. James returns to Leslie, and the trio travel towards a mountain retreat. James and Ellen escape and try to find the murderer who had framed James years before.
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Title: The Name of the Game
Character: Leona
Released: September 20, 1968
Type: TV
The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The show had an extremely large budget for a television series.
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Title: Hawaii Five-O
Character: Lannie Devereaux
Released: September 20, 1968
Type: TV
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for 12 seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. Jack Lord portrayed Detective Lieutenant Steve McGarrett, the head of a special state police task force which was based on an actual unit that existed under martial law in the 1940s. The theme music composed by Morton Stevens became especially popular. Many episodes would end with McGarrett instructing his subordinate to "Book 'em, Danno!", sometimes specifying a charge such as "murder one".
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Assignment to Kill
Title: Assignment to Kill
Character: Hotel Party Girl in Red Dress (uncredited)
Released: May 1, 1968
Type: Movie
A private eye is hired by an insurance company to investigate a shipping magnate suspected of deliberately sinking his own ships for the insurance money. He finds himself involved in a web of deception, double-crossing and murder.
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Title: It Takes a Thief
Character: Desk Clerk
Released: January 9, 1968
Type: TV
Convicted cat burglar Alexander Mundy gets an offer he can't refuse from the United States government: If he puts his formidable thieving skills to work for them, he'll be released from prison. Alexander's dad, Alister, sometimes comes out of retirement as a thief to help his son on special jobs.
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Title: Mannix
Character: Gwen Rogers
Released: September 16, 1967
Type: TV
Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors. Mannix was the last series produced by Desilu Productions.
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Title: Captain Nice
Character: Candy Kane
Released: January 9, 1967
Type: TV
Carter Nash was a chemist in a police department who discovered a liquid which could turn him into Captain Nice, an odd sort of superhero: very shy and dominated by his mother. Captain Nice flew (he feared heights) in his tattered leotards, fighting bad guys because his mother told him to do so.
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Any Wednesday
Title: Any Wednesday
Character: Miss Linsley
Released: October 13, 1966
Type: Movie
Ellen Gordon, a New York executive's mistress falls for the executive's young business associate when the young man is accidentally sent to use the apartment where the executive and his mistress get together every Wednesday. More complications arise when the executive's wife shows up with plans to redecorate the apartment.
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Title: Get Smart
Character: Nancy
Released: September 18, 1965
Type: TV
Get Smart is an American comedy television series that satirizes the secret agent genre. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show stars Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Edward Platt. Henry said they created the show by request of Daniel Melnick, who was a partner, along with Leonard Stern and David Susskind, of the show's production company, Talent Associates, to capitalize on "the two biggest things in the entertainment world today"—James Bond and Inspector Clouseau. Brooks said: "It's an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy." This is the only Mel Brooks production to feature a laugh track. The success of the show eventually spawned the follow-up films The Nude Bomb and Get Smart, Again!, as well as a 1995 revival series and a 2008 film remake. In 2010, TV Guide ranked Get Smart's opening title sequence at No. 2 on its list of TV's Top 10 Credits Sequences, as selected by readers.
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Title: Hogan's Heroes
Character: Ilse
Released: September 17, 1965
Type: TV
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to July 4, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II. Bob Crane starred as Colonel Robert E. Hogan, coordinating an international crew of Allied prisoners running a Special Operations group from the camp. Werner Klemperer played Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the commandant of the camp, and John Banner was the inept sergeant-of-the-guard, Hans Schultz. The series was popular during its six-season run. In 2013, creators Bernard Fein through his estate and Albert S. Ruddy acquired the sequel and other separate rights to Hogan's Heroes from Mark Cuban through arbitration and a movie based on the show has been planned.
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Title: Bewitched
Character: Betty (uncredited)
Released: September 17, 1964
Type: TV
Samantha Stephens is a seemingly normal suburban housewife who also happens to be a genuine witch, with all the requisite magical powers. Her husband Darrin insists that Samantha keep her witchcraft under wraps, but situations invariably require her to indulge her powers while keeping her bothersome mother Endora at bay.
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Title: Bonanza
Character: Wilhelmina Calhoun
Released: September 12, 1959
Type: TV
The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.
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Title: Bonanza
Character: Meena Calhoun
Released: September 12, 1959
Type: TV
The High-Sierra adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community.