Pamela Susan Shoop

Though she found plenty of work on her own, character actor Pamela Susan Shoop knew she could usually count on Glen A. Larson for a TV role or two; Shoop appeared in many of the famed TV producer's shows, including the simian road trip sitcom "B. J. and the Bear" and the brotherly detective drama "Simon & Simon." Shoop began acting in the early '70s with small roles in everything from the violent cop drama "Mannix" to the daytime soap "Return to Peyton Place," where she portrayed the emotionally fragile Allison MacKenzie Tate, a role originated by Mia Farrow in the original '60s series. After landing a rare starring role in the short-lived "Keeper of the Wild," Shoop was cast as a vacationing suburbanite in the campy horror film "Empire of the Ants," loosely based on H. G. Wells's short story about a colony of giant, mutated ants. She next appeared in the "Dirty Harry"-inspired "The One-Man Jury" as the target of a sadistic serial killer, and played a sweet but dim Southerner in "Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders," a TV movie about an undercover reporter (Jane Seymour) who joins the famed squad. In addition to her work on other Larson shows, like the easygoing "Magnum, P.I." and the citizen-hero action series "Masquerade," Shoop gave a memorable performance in the '81 horror film "Halloween II" as a hospital nurse scalded to death by escaped lunatic Michael Myers.