Glynnis O’Connor

An attractive leading lady whose best success has come in TV-movies, the auburn-haired Glynnis O'Connor has eyes that can register poignancy, con artistry, or deep caring, and she has continually used them to their best advantage. She got her start while still a teenager in "Jeremy" (1973), in which she was the slightly older girlfriend of Robby Benson in this tale of young love amongst Manhattan's private school elite. In 1976, O'Connor was opposite the much more sexually dangerous Jan-Michael Vincent in "Baby Blue Marine." That same year, she was teamed again with Benson, playing Bobbie Lee Hartley in "Ode to Billy Joe," an independent movie based on the popular ballad that became a modest box-office hit. Subsequent feature roles have not been as spotlighted, although O'Connor was opposite Michael Keaton in the 1984 comedy "Johnny Dangerously."

O'Connor went to TV soon after her first film. She was one of the stars of the short-lived 1974 CBS series "Sons and Daughters," an ongoing saga of young love in the 50s. She was the object of John Travolta's affection in "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" (ABC, 1976), Emily Webb to Robby Benson's George Gibbs in "Our Town" (NBC, 1977) and the tennis star Maureen Connolly in the 1978 NBC biopic "Little Mo." Since the 80s, O'Connor has been in a string of TV-movies, notably the fact-based "Why Me?" (ABC, 1984), as a an Air Force nurse who must rebuild her life after a tragic car accident leaves her disfigured, "The Deliberate Stranger" (NBC, 1986), opposite Mark Harmon as serial killer Ted Bundy, "To Heal a Nation" (NBC, 1988), as Eric Roberts' wife, in the story of the designing of the Washington, DC, Vietnam War memorial and "Flowers for Matty" (ABC, 1990), which brought Telly Savalas back as Kojak. After a brief run on the CBS daytime drama "As the World Turns" in the early 90s, O'Connor was back in primetime in telefilms like 1995's "Past the Bleachers" (ABC).