Free Women's Blog

Zelda Rubinstein, the actress with the childlike voice, famous for her role in the 1982 horror movie “Poltergeist” has died Wednesday at the age of 76. According to her agent, Eric Stevens, she died at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in LA of natural causes.

The diminutive, 4-foot-3 actress debuted on film as one of the little people in the comedy “Under the Rainbow” (1981).

Rubinstein’s film appearances include “Sixteen Candles”, “Frances”, “Anguish”, “Teen Witch” and the popular TV series “Picket Fences”.

She had a memorable role as Tangina in the horror movie “Poltergeist”. The role she played was expressively written for a little person.

Rubinstein was born on May 28, 1933 in Pittsburgh as the only little person in the family. She was at peace with her small size only when she was an adult. “I just decided it was a very interesting variation,” Rubinstein said.

She earned a degree in bacteriology at the University of Pittsburg and worked as a lab technician for several years before pursuing an acting career in 1978.

In an interview to The Times in 1985, Rubinstein said she wanted to get involved in the battle against AIDS when she was asked to appear in the campaign L.A. CARES – Los Angeles Cooperative AIDS Risk-Reduction Education Service – launched in the early 1985.

Executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles, Craig E. Thompson stated, “She was one of the very first Hollywood celebrities to speak out on HIV and AIDS.”

R.I.P.

Sandra Annette Bullock (born on July 26, 1964) is an American actress who rose to fame in the 1990s with films such as Speed or While You Were Sleeping. Bullock starred in 2009, in her most financially successful films, The Proposal and The Blind Side. Her performance in The Blind Side earned her the Golden Globe Award in the Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama category.

Bullock was born in Arlington, Virginia and lived in Nuremberg, Germany until she was 12, being fluent in German. As a child, Bullock studied ballet and vocal arts, having smaller parts in her mother’s opera productions. She attended Washington-Lee High School, graduating in 1982 and registered with East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. In the spring of 1986, she quit school just three credits short of graduation, for her acting career. Bullock moved to Manhattan where she worked as bartender, coat checker or cocktail waitress to support herself. However, she completed her coursework later on at East Carolina University.

While in New York, Bullock appeared in many students films being cast later on in an Off-Broadway play No Time Flat. Her performance caught the attention of director Alan J. Levi who cast Bullock in the TV movie Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989). She landed several small roles in numerous independent films and a lead role in the television version of the film Working Girl (1990).

Bullock had a first notable appearance in a movie, in the Demolition Man (1993), starring Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. Her role led to her memorable performance in Speed a year later. In the late 1990s she was already a high-level movie star, with a couple of successes behind her, such as While You Were Sleeping or Miss Congeniality.

Bullock was voted by People magazine as one of 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1996 and 1999 and ranked 58 in Empire magazine’s Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time list.
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