Leslie Parrish

Leslie Parrish
Leslie Parrish (c. 1962)
Born	Marjorie Hellen[1] (1935-03-13) March 13, 1935 (age 89)[2] Melrose, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	Philadelphia Conservatory of Music
Occupations	Actress activist writer producer
Years active	1955–1978
Known for	The Manchurian Candidate The Giant Spider Invasion Batman Who Mourns for Adonais?
Spouses	Ric Marlow ​ ​ (m. 1955; div. 1961)​ Richard Bach ​ ​ (m. 1981; div. 1999)​

Leslie Parrish (born Marjorie Hellen; March 13, 1935)^[2] is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years before changing it in 1959.

As a child, Parrish lived in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. At the age of 10, her family finally settled in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. At the age of 14, Parrish was a talented and promising piano and composition student at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music.^[3] At the age of 16, Parrish earned money for her tuition by working as a maid and a waitress, and by teaching piano. At the age of 18, to earn enough money to continue her education at the Conservatory, her mother persuaded her to become a model for one year.^[4][3]

In April 1954, as a 19-year-old model with the Conover Agency in New York City, Parrish was under contract to NBC-TV as "Miss Color TV" (she was used during broadcasts as a human test pattern to check accuracy of skin tones).^[5][3] She was quickly discovered and signed with Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood. In 1956, she was put under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.^[6] Because acting allowed her to help her family financially,^[7] she remained in Hollywood and gave up her career in music.

Parrish co-starred/guest-starred in numerous films and television shows throughout the 1960s and 1970s. She gained wide attention in her first starring role as Daisy Mae in the movie version of Li'l Abner (1959), where she changed her name from Marjorie Hellen to Leslie Parrish at the director's request.^[8] She appeared in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962), playing Laurence Harvey's on-screen fiancée, Jocelyn Jordan. Other film credits include starring opposite Kirk Douglas in For Love or Money (1963) and Jerry Lewis in Three on a Couch (1966), among others.^[9]

Parrish amassed an extensive résumé of television credits.^[9] Among many other credits, Parrish appeared in guest starring roles on episodes of The Wild Wild West, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, Family Affair, Bat Masterson, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Adam-12, Good Morning World, Police Story, Batman and McCloud.^[9] In 1967, she guest-starred on the Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", portraying Lt. Carolyn Palamas, the love interest of the character Apollo.^[10][9] In February 1968, she played opposite Peter Breck in the episode "A Bounty on a Barkley" of The Big Valley.^[9] The following month, Parrish made her first guest appearance on Mannix in the episode "The Girl in the Frame".^[11][12]

Parrish served as associate producer on the film version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973). Among other things, she hired the director of photography Jack Couffer – who later received an Academy Award nomination for his efforts – and she was responsible for the care of the film's real-life seagulls, which she kept inside a room at a Holiday Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California for the duration of the shoot. When the relationship between author Richard Bach and director Hall Bartlett disintegrated and a lawsuit followed, Parrish was appointed as the mediator between the two men, but the meditation failed. Ultimately, the film was released in theaters with Bach's name taken off the screenwriting credits, while Bartlett demoted Parrish's credit in the finished film from associate producer to researcher.^[13]

In 1975, Parrish appeared in the low budget B-Movie The Giant Spider Invasion which is now regarded as a cult film.^{[citation needed]}

While acting provided financial stability, her main interest was in social causes including the anti-war and civil rights movements^[14] and, as far back as the mid 1950s, the environment.

Parrish's interests and activities in social movements and politics grew to become her main work. She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, a member of the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, a group of notable women who fought against the war and for civil rights.^[15] In June 1967, the then-32-year-old Parrish participated in a peace march in the Century City district of Los Angeles, where she and thousands of other protestors were attacked and beaten by the LAPD and the National Guard. President Lyndon Johnson was present at the Century Plaza Hotel and helicopters were flying overhead with machine guns pointed at the marchers.^[16][17]

Parrish started to make speeches in the Los Angeles area, telling residents what the media did not report and speaking out against the war. Impressed with her speaking abilities, several professors from UCLA aligned with the anti-war movement asked her to organize more like-minded actors and actresses who would be willing to speak out.^[18] Two weeks later, Parrish had created "STOP!" (Speakers and Talent Organized for Peace), an organization of two dozen members ready to engage the public.^[19][20] Shortly thereafter, the organization grew to 125 speakers, and many more subsequently.^[18]

On August 6, 1967, Parrish helped organize a protest march of 17,000 people on the "Miracle Mile" of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, which received extensive media coverage and national attention. She also created a popular bumper sticker: 'Suppose they gave a war and no one came'.^[21][22][23] Parrish and her friends distributed hundreds of them from their vehicles. Walter Cronkite reported that Robert F. Kennedy had one in his plane. Someone later published the bumper sticker, changing the original wording to 'WHAT IF they gave a war and no one came' but to Parrish, the important thing was spreading that message.

In October 1967, a private meeting was arranged between Parrish and Kennedy by mutual friend and well-known Kennedy photographer, Stanley Tretick.^[24][25] She begged Kennedy to run for president, telling him that huge, influential organizations opposed to the war in Vietnam were ready to support him were he to run. Kennedy refused again and again, saying he could not oppose Lyndon Johnson, a sitting president.^[26][27] On November 30, Eugene McCarthy, a little-known senator, declared he would run against the war and challenge Johnson. Parrish was elected chair of his speaker's bureau and utilized STOP! to develop support for McCarthy.^[26] On March 16, 1968, when Kennedy announced that he would run for president, Parrish remained loyal to McCarthy and was elected a delegate to represent him in August at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.^[28]

On April 4, 1968, Parrish and Leonard Nimoy (who was a STOP! member and supporter of Eugene McCarthy) flew to San Francisco to open McCarthy's new headquarters there. After they left, they learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Nimoy and Parrish cried during the speeches they gave that evening.

On June 6, Kennedy was assassinated on the night he won the California and South Dakota primaries. In August, during the Chicago Democratic Convention, McCarthy delegates, including Parrish, spent little time on the convention floor, as Hubert Humphrey had already collected the most delegates through the closed caucus and convention systems in place (in those days) in 40 of the 50 states. On the night of the nomination, August 28, Parrish joined the McCarthy delegates outside the Hilton Hotel, where violent actions by police against anti-war demonstrators and spectators were being covered by live television.^[29][30]

While still in Chicago, the peace movement began working toward the 1972 election, hoping to elect George McGovern. Parrish served as a McGovern delegate at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami, Florida.^[31][32] McGovern lost to Richard Nixon.^[33]

During this era of political activism, Parrish worked in numerous political campaigns (presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial, congressional, mayoral) and with many different organizations, producing public events and fundraisers for them. Her last major production was the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), held November 16, 1969 at San Francisco's Polo Grounds.^[34]

In 1969, Parrish joined many in an effort to remove Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty from office. She supported and campaigned for a former police lieutenant named Tom Bradley, who was then the city's first black city councilman. Despite high polling numbers prior to the election, Bradley lost to Yorty, giving rise to what was later known as "The Bradley Effect."^[35] Next day, he decided to run again, and over the next four years Parrish worked with him closely to help secure his victory in the next mayoral election. In 1973, Bradley became Los Angeles's first black mayor. Parrish was one of forty activist citizens who served on Bradley's Blue Ribbon Commission to choose new Los Angeles Commissioners.^[36] Parrish and Tom Bradley remained friends for many years.

The lack of media coverage during the Century City riots in 1967 prompted Parrish to think of a new way to cover such events live to prevent suppression and/or manipulation of the news. In 1969, she began to create a television station that would devote itself to covering public events and provide in-depth analysis and discussions of important developments in the world. In 1974, KVST-TV^[37] (Viewer Sponsored Television, Channel 68, Los Angeles) went on the air as part of the PBS system of stations. Film notables, business people and local activists formed the board of directors and provided support for the unique station. After a difficult start, KVST was receiving positive reviews in Los Angeles and nationwide attention. However, by 1976, internal dissension on the board of directors led to the demise of the station;^[38] the signal was turned off and the licence turned in.^[39]

Parrish's concern for the environment dates back to the 1950s when Los Angeles’ severe smog, and the reason for it, worried her. In 1979, she and her then-husband, Richard Bach, built an experimental home in southwest Oregon using 100% solar power with no cooling or heating systems, in order to prove it could be done.^{[citation needed]}

While living in Oregon, Parrish saw devastated forests managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and decided to protest a local timber sale.^[40] With two neighbors, she and Bach established an organization called "Threatened and Endangered: Little Applegate Valley" (TELAV). They worked for two years researching and writing a 600-page legal and scientific protest of BLM's logging of forests which would not regenerate, which was illegal.^[41][42][43] The BLM assistant state director eventually agreed, telling the Medford Mail Tribune that ..."The sale involves enough improprieties in BLM rules and procedures that it can’t be legally awarded. In order to comply with our own procedures we had no choice but to withdraw the sale and reject all bids." The TELAV protest document served as the basis for many future timber sale protests in the U.S. and Canada. TELAV continues to fight for the environment to this day and the Little Applegate Valley has never been logged.^[44]

In 1999, Parrish created a 240-acre (97 ha) wildlife sanctuary on Orcas Island (in the San Juan Islands, Washington State) to save it from normal development techniques which include logging. She named it the "Spring Hill Wildlife Sanctuary".^[45] For seventeen years, she carefully developed the ridge-top property by creating nearly a dozen small, hidden home sites on 25% of the land while preserving the remainder in perpetuity within the San Juan Preservation Trust. While the property is now fully developed there are no breaks in the heavily forested ridge line. The developed land is invisible from the island community and the forest is intact.^{[citation needed]}

Parrish married songwriter Ric Marlow in 1955; the couple divorced in 1961.^[46] In 1981, she married Richard Bach,^[47][48] the author of the 1970 book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, whom she met during the making of the 1973 movie of the same name. She was a major element in two of his subsequent books—The Bridge Across Forever (1984) and One (1988)—which primarily focused on their relationship and Bach's concept of soulmates.^[49][46] They divorced in 1999.

Year	Title	Role
1955	The Virgin Queen	Anne*
1955	A Man Called Peter	Newlywed*
1955	Daddy Long Legs	College Girl*
1955	How to Be Very, Very Popular	Girl On Bus*
1955	The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing	Florodora Girl*
1956	The Lieutenant Wore Skirts	Tipsy Girl At Party*
1956	The Power and the Prize	Telephone Operator*
1957	Hot Summer Night	Hazel*
1957	Man on Fire	Honey*
1958	Missile to the Moon	Moon Girl
1958	Tank Battalion	Lt. Alice Brent*
1959	Li'l Abner	Daisy Mae
1961	Portrait of a Mobster	Iris Murphy
1962	The Manchurian Candidate	Jocelyn Jordan
1963	For Love or Money	Jan Brasher
1964	Sex and the Single Girl	Susan
1966	Three on a Couch	Mary Lou Mauve
1968	The Money Jungle	Treva Saint
1969	The Candy Man	Julie Evans
1969	The Devil's 8	Cissy
1970	Brother, Cry for Me (aka: Boca Affair)	Jenny Noble
1971	D.A.: Conspiracy to Kill	Ramona Bertrand
1971	Banyon	Ruth Sprague
1975	The Giant Spider Invasion	Ev
1976	The Astral Factor (aka: Invisible Strangler)	Colleen Hudson
1977	Crash	Kathy Logan

* credited as Marjorie Hellen

Airdate	Series title	Episode title	Role
January 3, 1959	Steve Canyon	"Operation Big Thunder"	Jo
February 29, 1959	77 Sunset Strip	"Lovely Alibi"	Jodie (uncredited)
1959	Bold Venture	—	unknown
May 21, 1959	The Rough Riders	"Deadfall"	Cleopatra
April 12, 1960	Tightrope	"Gangsters Daughter"	Theresa
April 30, 1960	Perry Mason	"The Case of the Madcap Modiste"	Hope Sutherland
June 2, 1960	Bat Masterson	"The Elusive Baguette"	Lucy Carter
September 21, 1960	The Aquanauts	"Collision"	Jill Talley
October 22, 1960	The Roaring 20s	"Champagne Lady"	Bubbles LaPeer
December 15, 1960	Bat Masterson	"A Time to Die"	Lisa Anders
December 21, 1960	Hawaiian Eye	"Services Rendered"	Marcella
December 23, 1960	Michael Shayne	"Death Selects the Winner"	Ellen Cook
January 27, 1961	77 Sunset Strip	"The Positive Negative"	Amanda Sant
April 3, 1961	Acapulco	"Fisher's Daughter"	unknown
April 17, 1961	Surfside 6	"Circumstantial Evidence"	Sunny Golden
April 18, 1961	The Jim Backus Show (aka: Hot off the Wire)	"The Plant"	unknown
June 28, 1961	Bringing Up Buddy	"The Couple Next Door"	unknown
September 16, 1961	Perry Mason	"The Case of the Impatient Partner"	Vivien Ames
October 22, 1961	Follow the Sun	"Busmans Holiday"	Tiffany Caldwell
November 6, 1961	Surfside 6	"The Affairs at Hotel Delight"	Lavender
November 25, 1961	Perry Mason	"The Case of the Left-Handed Liar"	Veronica Temple
January 9, 1962	Bachelor Father	"Kelly and the Yes Man"	Kim Fontaine
February 14, 1962	Hawaiian Eye	"Four-Cornered Triangle"	Kathy Marsh
February 27, 1962	Ichabod and Me	"Bob's Housekeeper"	Lily Fontain
February 21, 1963	Alcoa Premiere	"Chain Reaction"	Vicki
December 4, 1963	Channing	"A Dolls House with Pom Pom and Trophies"	Joyce Ruskin
March 28, 1964	The Lieutenant	"Operation Actress"	Toni Kaine
November 12, 1964	Kraft Suspense Theatre	"The Kamchatka Incident"	Susan King
November 21, 1964	Kentucky Jones	"The Sour Note"	Miss Patterson
November 27, 1964	The Reporter	"Murder by Scandal"	Ruth Killiam
October 1, 1965	The Wild Wild West	"The Night the Wizard Shook the Earth"	Greta Lundquist
December 4, 1965	Insight	"Fire Within"	Joanne
January 20, 1966	Batman	"The Penguin's a Jinx"	Dawn Robbins
September 15, 1966	My Three Sons	"Stag at Bay"	Flame LaRose
1966 (Fall)	Green for Danger	pilot episode	unknown
October 21, 1966	The Wild Wild West	"The Night of the Flying Pie Plate"	Morn/Maggie
February 17, 1967	Tarzan	"Mask of Rona"	Beryl
March 29, 1967	Batman	"The Duo Defy"	Glacia Glaze
March 30, 1967	Batman	"Ice Spy"	Glacia Glaze
September 22, 1967	Star Trek	"Who Mourns for Adonais?"	Lt. Carolyn Palamas
October 3, 1967	Good Morning World	"World, Buy Calimari" (pilot episode)	Audrey Zeiner
October 16, 1967	The Man From U.N.C.L.E.	"The Masters Touch Affair"	Leslie Welling
January 6, 1968	Iron Horse	"Dry Run to Glory"	Eve Lewis
February 26, 1968	The Big Valley	"A Bounty on a Barkley"	Layle Johnson
March 16, 1968	Mannix	"The Girl in the Frame"	Linda Marley
January 5, 1969	My Friend Tony	Voices	Lila
March 17, 1969	Family Affair	"Speak for Yourself, Mr. French"	Emily Travers
October 18, 1969	Mannix	"The Playground"	Mona
November 8, 1969	Petticoat Junction	"The Tenant"	Jacquelin Moran
November 16, 1969	To Rome with Love	"A Palazzo Is Not a Home"	Elaine
December 8, 1969	Love, American Style	"Love and the Mountain Cabin"	Mrs. Pfister
October 31, 1970	Mannix	"The Other Game in Town"	T.C.
February 5, 1971	Love, American Style	"Love and the Pulitzer Prize"	Michelle Turner
February 28, 1971	Hogan's Heroes	"Kommandant Gertrude"	Karen
November 4, 1971	Bearcats!	"Blood Knot"	Liz Blake
December 14, 1971	Marcus Welby M.D.	"Cross Match"	Elaine Perino
January 31, 1972	Cade's County	"Slay Ride" - Part 1	Jana Gantry
February 6, 1972	Cade's County	"Slay Ride" - Part 2	Jana Gantry
March 10, 1972	O'Hara, U.S. Treasury	"Operation: Smokescreen"	Olga Miles
December 20, 1972	Adam 12	"Gifts and Long Letters"	Sharon Blake
January 8, 1974	The Magician	"Shattered Image"	Lydia
February 12, 1974	Police Story	"The Ripper"	Mrs. Delaley
October 13, 1974	McCloud	"The Gang That Stole Manhattan"	Lynne OConnell
September 13, 1977	Logan's Run	"The Collectors"	Joanna
April 30, 1978	Police Story	"No Margin for Error"	Georgie Hayes

Airdate	Series title	Episode title	Role
January 12, 1960	The Red Skelton Show	"Clem Kadiddlehopper in Dog Patch"	Daisy June
April 4, 1961	The Red Skelton Show	"Clem's Theatre"	Daisy June
January 23, 1962	The Red Skelton Show	"Clem and the Kadiddlehopper Hop"	Daisy June

Airdate	Series title	Notes
November 19, 1962	Here's Hollywood	Jack Linkletter (Interviewer) – S.2, Ep.52
May 24, 1966	The Tonight Show	Jerry Lewis (guest-host)

Series title	Notes
The Dating Game	several broadcast in the early 1960s
Stump the Stars	several broadcast in the 1960s

• The International Leslie Parrish Website - The Official Site / Full Biography page
• Cushman, Marc (2014). These are the Voyages - Star Trek TOS, Season Two. Jacob Brown Media Group. ISBN 978-1199573766.
• Duncan, David Douglas (1969). Self-Portrait: U.S.A.. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0989238151.
• Armstrong, David (1981). A Trumpet to Arms: Alternative Media in America. South End Press. ISBN 978-0896081932.
• Wagner, Eleanor Klein (1977). Independent Political Coalitions, Electoral, Legislative and Community: Oral History Transcript. Forgotten Books. ISBN 978-1176537408.
• Bach, Richard (1984). The Bridge Across Forever. Pan Publishing. ISBN 9780440108269.
• Green, Paul (2007). Pete Duel: A Biography. McFarland. ISBN 978-0786430628.
• Who's Who in America 1978-1979 - Volume 2 (40th ed.). Marquis Who's Who. 1978. p. 2504. ISBN 9780837901404.

• Official website
• Leslie Parrish at IMDb