Dinah Lenney
Dinah Lenney(néeGross;born November 18, 1956)[1]is an American actress and writer. She is the author ofBigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir,a 2007 book about the murder of her father,Republican Partypolitician and businessmanNelson G. Gross.
Biography[edit]
Lenney was born inNew York Cityto Nelson Gerard Gross and Leah (née Binger) Gross. Her parents divorced in 1958, after which time she lived with her mother, who remarried Ron Lenney. Her surname was legally changed from Gross to Lenney around her sixteenth birthday.[2]She attendedYale University,graduating with aB.A.degree in American Studies in 1978. She received a Certificate of Acting from theNeighborhood Playhouse,where she studied withSanford Meisner.She also holds aMaster of Fine Artsin creative nonfiction from theBenningtonWriting Seminars.[3]
In her acting career, Lenney has had a variety of stage, film, and television roles. On television she has appeared on shows such asMarried... with Children(1991),Murphy Brown,Judging Amy,A Fine RomanceandSouth of Nowhere.Beginning in 1995 she played a recurring role onERas Nurse Shirley.[4]In 2006 she coauthored the bookActing for Young ActorswithMary Lou Belli.[5]
In 2007University of Nebraska Presspublished her memoir,Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir,which recounts her experience of learning that her father,Nelson G. Gross,had been kidnapped and murdered in September 1997.[6]
Her bookThe Object Parade,a collection of 32 personal essays which first appeared in publications includingCreative Nonfiction,AGNIand theHarvard Review,was first published in 2014. Writing in theLos Angeles Review of Books,Ned Stuckey-French describedThe Object Paradeas an "essay collection [disguised] as a memoir, though perhaps it's the other way around."[7]
Family[edit]
Lenney is married to screenwriter/producer Fred Mills; the couple has two children.[8][3]
References[edit]
- ^Neediest Helped as Thanks to U.S. ",The New York Times,December 14, 1956; accessed March 28, 2008.(subscription required)
- ^Lenney, Dinah.Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir(2007);ISBN978-0-8032-2976-1
- ^abPlaywrights: Dinah Lenney,PioneerDrama.com; accessed March 28, 2008.
- ^Interview with Dinah LenneyArchivedJune 13, 2008, at theWayback Machine.LitMinds blog, April 8, 2007. Accessed March 28, 2008.
- ^Belli, Mary Lou and Lenney, Dinah.Acting for Young Actors(2006);ISBN978-0-8230-4947-9
- ^Woods, Paula L. (April 8, 2007)."Life without father".Los Angeles Times.p. 126.RetrievedJune 20,2024– via Newspapers.com.
- ^Stuckey-French, Ned (May 24, 2014)."Object Lesson: Dinah Lenney and the Essayist's Dilemma".Los Angeles Review of Books.RetrievedJune 16,2019.
- ^"Births".Variety,March 5, 1993. Accessed March 28, 2008.
External links[edit]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1956 births
- American film actresses
- American memoirists
- American stage actresses
- American television actresses
- Bennington College alumni
- Living people
- Yale University alumni
- Actresses from Englewood, New Jersey
- Writers from Englewood, New Jersey
- American women memoirists
- 21st-century American women
- Memoirists from New Jersey