Theresa Russell

Theresa Russell made an auspicious debut as the daughter of a movie studio head in Elia Kazan's "The Last Tycoon" (1976). Trained in the Method at the Lee Strasberg Institute, she proved effective in her early film roles, especially opposite Dustin Hoffman in "Straight Time" (1978). Russell was first directed by her future husband, Nicolas Roeg, in "Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession" (1980), which cast her in the role of a young patient who falls under the sway of a psychiatrist. Perhaps the actress' most notorious role was the titular "Whore" (1991) in Ken Russell's examination of the world's oldest profession. She was teamed with Jacqueline Bisset in "Once You Meet a Stranger" (CBS, 1996), a remake of Hitchcock's 1951 classic "Strangers on a Train." Russell also played the formidable mother of Denise Richards in the campy/sultry neo-noir "Wild Things" (1998). Russell continued to work steadily, balancing a career in feature films--including "Luckytown" (2000), "The Believer" (2001) and "Passionada" (2002)--with TV movies--from the genre-minded "Earth Vs. The Spider" (2001) to the exceptional HBO miniseries "Empire Falls" (2005)--to occasional series work--including guest roles on "Nash Bridges" and "G vs E" (as a character cheekily named Rheesa Tussel) and a regular stint on The WB's short-lived soapy mystery "Glory Days" (2001) as Hazel, owner of the titular small town's diner and aging bombshel. Russell was poised for a major career comeback when she was cast at the wife of Flint Marko (Thomas Hayden Church), the villainous Sandman in the highly anticipated sequel "Spider-Man 3" (lensed 2006).