LESLIE PARRISH was born March 18th, 1935 in Melrose, Massachusetts.

Music was her chosen career and she was off to a brilliant start, paying tuition at the Philadelphia

Conservatory of Music at age 14 by working as a maid and later, at 16, teaching piano and doing

waitress work. She had no interest in modeling or acting but at 19, as her tuition and teachers

became more expensive, she had to take a year off to work full time to save money. Her mother

convinced her she could earn more and save more if she worked as a model.

While working for The Conover Model Agency in New York City, she was soon put under contract

to NBC-TV and then under contract to 20th Century Fox and MGM Pictures, both in Hollywood.

Her first starring role was as Daisy Mae in "Li'l Abner". Her favorite roles were in "The

Manchurian Candidate", "Star Trek" and "The Big Valley". For a list of more than 100 films and

television guest-starring roles see this site's 'Full Credits' section (favorites in yellow highlight).

She continued to work in films for 25 years as she was earning enough to help her family, but

deliberately avoided major stardom as she knew that it was not the life she wanted.

She had become active in the civil rights, anti-war, environmental movements and politics - all

based in Hollywood - where she stayed until 1977.

A 1955 marriage to singer/lyricist Ric Marlow had ended in 1961. In 1977, she married writer/aviator

Richard Bach. Her marriage to Bach was the subject of two best selling books world-wide,

"The Bridge Across Forever" and "One". She and Bach travelled, created and worked together

until their divorce in 1999. Leslie is still an activist and is presently writing her autobiography.

For a more extensive biography, please click below on 'FULL BIO'.

SHORTJBIO:BIOgraphy

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