Marcy Lafferty

Marcy Lafferty, (born 21 June 1946) is an American actress and playwright.

Marcy Lafferty was born on June 21, 1946, in New York City, New York. Her father, Perry Lafferty, is a well-known television producer and network television executive who produced several television programs, including the CBS programs All in the Family, MASH, Maude*, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her mother, Frances Carden, was a radio actress, from whom she received her first acting lessons. 

Lafferty learned ballet at the American Ballet Theater in New York. She later had professional acting lessons from the renowned acting teacher Stella Adler.

She graduated from the University of Southern California, where she was a member of the Festival Theater USC-USA, which was the first American theater company to participate in the Edinburgh International Drama Festival. She stepped on the Festival Theater as "Abigail" in Arthur Miller's The Crucible; Lois in Dear Friends'Katherine in Suddenly, Last Summer; Elise and Maggie in Arthur Miller's After the Fall; and as a singer and dancer in the musical Guys and Dolls and Pal Joey. It was through this program that she met director John Edward Blankenchip, who 30 years later was instrumental in bringing her play "Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference" to fruition. In September 2009, she was one of the guest speakers at the memorial service for Blankenchip, who died in April 2009.

Stage

Lafferty was seen internationally in over 60 plays. These included, among other plays, Otherwise Engaged by Simon Gray in 1978 (as "Divina Saunders") and Tennessee Williams' The Cat on the Hot Tin Roof 1981, with William Shatner as actor and director, in Los Angeles. 

She played the Eastern United States summer circuit in The Tender Trap (Broadway play by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith) and Tennessee Williams' Period of Adjustment.

Lafferty was in the role of "Portia" in Richard Greenberg's play The Author's Voice at the Stella Adler Theater in Los Angeles. In 1991, she toured with her then-husband William Shatner with the play Love Letters.

She wrote, directed, and starred in short film Vivien: The Movie, The Marriage, The Madness. This film gave rise to the idea for a play titles Vivien Leigh: The Last Press Conference — a one-person play that Lafferty wrote herself. The first performance took place in the summer of 1997 at Drummond Theater in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival instead. 1998 saw performances of the play at the Tiffany Theater in Los Angeles, Theater LaB in Houston, and Scene Dock Theatre in Los Angeles. From autumn 2000, Lafferty went on tour with the piece.

In 2001, Lafferty performed Vivien in London, which was also reviewed in the New York Times. In 2004, she took the play to the Off-Broadway 59E59 Theaters in New York City. 

In 2007, she made a guest appearance with Vivien at Spindletop Hall in Lexington, Kentucky. In April 2010, Italian actress Catherine Spaak performed the role of Vivien at the Teatro Eliseo in Rome, Italy. French actress Caroline Silhol also performed the role in 2009.

Film/television

Lafferty made her screen debut in 1969, playing the role of "Vicky" in an episode of TV series The New People. The following year, she was seen in an episode of the TV series Hawaii Five-O. She had her first role in a TV movie in 1971, when she portrayed a secretary, alongside Dean Stockwell and Stefanie Powers in Paper Man— a movie about identity theft at the time when it was neither as common a crime nor as difficult to commit. In the same year, she was also seen in an episode of The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the role of "Janice." 

In 1973, Lafferty was in the TV comedy movie Stat! as "Dolores Payne" and in another TV movie, director Norman Panama's Coffee, Tea or Me?

She starred in Impulse in 1974 with her husband-by-then William Shatner and Ruth Roman. In the same year, she starred in TV movie Tell Me Where It Hurts alongside Paul Sorvino and Maureen Stapleton. In the TV series Barbary Coast, she worked again with William Shatner. 

In 1976, Lafferty was seen as "Connie" in an episode of the TV series Barbary Coast. The following year, she was again seen alongside William Shatner in John 'Bud' Cardos' sci-fi/horror film Kingdom of the Spiders. In the film, she portrayed Shatner's sister-in-law who fell victim to the arachnids. Also in 1977, she played the role of "Susan Barlow" in an episode of Big Hawaii.

In 1979, she worked with Shatner on Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in which she played the role of "Chief DiFalco." That same year, she was seen in another one of John 'Bud' Cardos' sci-fi/horror The Day Time Ended, starring Jim Davis and Bentley Mitchum. 

In 1982, she played a minor role in Airplane II: The Sequel, which also starred Shatner, along with Robert Hays, Sonny Bono, and Lloyd Bridges. 

Between 1982 and 1986, she was seen in various roles in four episodes of TV crime series T.J. Hooker. In 1984, she made a guest appearance as "Rhonda Rondale" in "The Deadly Prey" episode of the TV series The New Mike Hammer, with Anthony De Longis and Stacy Keach.

After a temporary hiatus from acting, she appeared in 1994 in Jeff Seymour's Rave Review alongside Ed Begley Jr. and Joe Spano. In the 1996 comedy Wedding Bell Blues, she played the role of "Sonya Napier."

Lafferty also appeared three times on CBS's game show Tattletales. In one appearance with then-husband Shatner, she explained her wedding gift to Shatner was that she needle-pointed a pair of shoes for him to wear during the ceremony. In 1984, she participated in CBS's variety show Circus of the Stars.

Lafferty was first married to Lawrence Hayes Brown from 8 June 1968 until the divorce in 1970. She then married actor William Shatner on October 20, 1973. They separated in 1994 and divorced in 1996. 

Lafferty later married Elliot King, an international hairstylist. Lafferty and her King raise award-winning show horses on their farm in Lexington, Kentucky. They divide their time between Lexington and Los Angeles.