Betty Buckley

Betty Lynn Buckley is an American stage, film and television actress, and singer. She starred from 1977 to 1981 on the ABC series Eight is Enough, before going on to win the 1983 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Grizabella in the original Broadway production of Cats. Her other musical roles include playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard from 1994 to 1996, in both London and New York, receiving an Olivier Award nomination. She is a 2012 American Theater Hall of Fame inductee.

Betty Lynn Buckley was born in Big Spring, Texas and raised in Fort Worth, the daughter of Betty Bob , a dancer and journalist, and Ernest Lynn Buckley, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and former dean of engineering at South Dakota State University. She is the oldest of their four children. She has three brothersNorman Buckley is a film editor and TV director, and Patrick and Michael Buckley are engineers. While a student at Texas Christian University , she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha and crowned Miss Fort Worth in 1966 and was runnerup in the Miss Texas competition. Buckley was then invited to perform at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, and it was there that she was spotted by a talent scout. After returning to TCU to earn her college degree, she toured Asia to visit soldiers wounded in the Vietnam War. After this, she worked for a time as a reporter for the Fort Worth Press, but went to New York City in 1969, where she landed the role of Martha Jeffers

Source: Wikipedia