Dinah Manoff Biography

Fast Facts

• Accepted into the Actors Studio in New York at age of 17
• First sitcom (Soap) regular whose character was murdered on camera in television history; she also played the first screen victim of the murderous Chucky in Child's Play
• Appeared on Broadway in Leader of the Pack and I Ought to Be in Pictures
• Her role in the latter production earned her a 1980 Tony award as well as the self-confidence needed to escape the shadow of her mother, Lee Grant, an actress who won an Oscar
• Her father, Arnold Manoff, was a TV writer who was blacklisted for "un-American" activities during the controversial days of McCarthyism
• In 1992, she paid tribute to him with her directorial debut, of Telegram From Heaven, at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre; it was based on his novel of the same name
• In 2010, she attended the Seattle International Film Festival in connection with Grease Sing-along; Manoff played Marty in the original 1978 release of Grease