You know Jamie Donnelly from her double-wide smile and champagne personality. A veteran actress of stage, television, and movies, Jamie is a bonafide cult figure for not one but two major 20th century cultural events: The original “Rocky Horror Show”, both at the Roxy in Los Angeles and on Broadway with Tim Curry, in which she coined the roles of Trixie and Magenta, and “Grease” on Broadway and in the movie with John and Olivia in which she played Jan, the “brusha brusha” Pink Lady.
After growing up in New Jersey where she could see the glittering skyline of New York City across the river, Jamie did a couple dozen summer stock musicals before she landed on Broadway at the age of seventeen in Kander and Ebb’s, “Flora, The Red Menace”. She both understudied Liza Minelli’s Tony award winning title role and originated the character of Lulu. A darling of the New York theatre crowd, she continued starring in a succession of Broadway musicals such as “George M” at the Palace opposite Joel Grey. One of her favorite memories is having been taught “Falling in Love with Love” by Richard Rodgers which she sang at the Helen Hayes Theatre in “Rodgers and Hart”.
Jamie also worked off-Broadway in the original company of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown”, in regional theatre for “Hot L Baltimore”, overseen by the playwright, Lanford Wilson, in soap opera for a recurring role as Dusty Maguire on “The Guiding Light”, guest starring on television series “Policewoman” and “Barnaby Jones”, and television movies as a country western star with James Franciscus, “The Dream Makers”.
In another favorite part of her life, Jamie spent years on a ranch in Montana riding horses and writing screenplays for Hollywood, including “Desperado” from the Eagles album, with the love of her life, her husband, novelist Stephen H. Foreman (“Toehold”). They have a son and daughter, Sevi (b. 1987) and Madden (b. 1989), young musicians in their own right. While her kids were growing up Jamie became the beloved acting coach of some of the best actors and actresses in Hollywood today.
She’s excited about coming back to her public opposite Marisa Tomei and John C. Reilly in the upcoming Fox Searchlight feature, “The Untitled Duplass Brothers Film”, a guest starring role in the final season of the Golden Globe and Emmy winner, “Monk”, Nickelodeon’s “The Naked Brothers Band”, and Lifetime’s “The Legend of Lucy Keyes”. It should surprise no one that Jamie’s blood type is, honest to God, “B Positive”.
