Heather Langenkamp

This attractive, youthful leading lady of film and TV effectively conveys strength and intelligence while compelling audience sympathy. Langenkamp gained some small measure of fame and a place in genre film history playing Nancy Thompson, the determined and resourceful heroine of Wes Craven's "Nightmare on Elm Street" series (beginning in 1984), battling dream monster Freddy Krueger. Though she had starred in one previous feature--playing a rural, unwed teenaged mother in the little-seen "Nickel Mountain" (1983)--horror auteur Craven proved central to her slight film career. Langenkamp starred in the Craven co-scripted "A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors" (1987), played the victim in Craven's "Shocker" (1989) and starred as herself in "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" (1994).

The Oklahoma-born Langenkamp was a copy girl for the Tulsa TRIBUNE when she learned of auditions for a film being lensed in the area. She debuted as an extra in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" and landed a speaking bit in his immediate follow-up "Rumble Fish" (both 1983). By 1985, she was appearing in series guest spots, TV-movies, and youth-oriented programs like "Have You Tried Talking to Patty?" (a 1986 "CBS Schoolbreak Special") and "Can a Guy Say No?" (a 1986 "ABC Afterschool Special"). Langenkamp became a sitcom regular on "Just the Ten of Us" (ABC's spin-off of "Growing Pains," 1988-90) playing Marie, the model elder daughter of a large Catholic family.

Finding the transition between juvenile and adult roles difficult, Langenkamp took time off to complete her college education and concentrate on marriage and child-rearing. Craven lured her back to films in 1994, playing herself in the well-received postmodern exercise "Wes Craven's New Nightmare." Renewed by the experience, Langenkamp starred as ice princess Nancy Kerrigan in the trashy telepic "Tonya and Nancy: The Inside Story" (NBC, 1994). Since then, she has had the occasional guest role on TV, but more or less has concentrated on motherhood and her own chewing gum business.