Virginia Vincent

Virginia Vincent's film and television career is as long as it is varied; with small but memorable roles in everything from the '80s family sitcom "Eight is Enough" to the real-life murder drama "I Want to Live!," Vincent was a familiar on-screen presence for over 30 years. Her early years were spent appearing in live TV drama series like "Celebrity Playhouse" and "Kraft Theatre." By the late '50s, she had graduated to more substantial roles in films like the mob drama "The Black Orchid," where she played the wife of a ruthless criminal, and "I Want to Live!," a heavily fictionalized account of the life of Barbara Graham, a convicted murderer sentenced to the death penalty in 1955. After landing recurring roles on the popular crime serials "Perry Mason" and "The Untouchables," which inspired the Oscar-winning 1987 film, Vincent was cast as the older sister of Joey Bishop's ineffectual talk show host on the short lived sitcom "The Joey Bishop Show." She next appeared as a meddling matriarch on the high-profile soap opera "Peyton Place," based on the successful book (and movie) about the complicated lives of the residents of a fictional New England town. In 1977, she returned to the big screen as a helpless grandmother terrorized by a sadistic clan of mutant cannibals in Wes Craven's gory cult horror film "The Hills Have Eyes."