As "Penny Hughes" on daytime TV's As the World Turns (1956) from 1956-1968, popular stage and soap actress Rosemary Prinz, the pretty lady with the distinctive mole, was the reigning Susan Lucci of her day. Born in New York City, her father was a classical musician who was a part of the New York String Quartet and, at one time, played cello for ...
There were many guidelines [in 1950s soaps]. This was way before Women's Lib. You could NEVER get divorced. That is why so many leading men died. In order to further the story you had to kill off the guy because it was a woman's medium. You killed off the guy and then the heroine married somebody else. If you were a leading man you never signed a long term lease.
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Fact
1
As "Penny Hughes" on As the World Turns (1956), she and actor Mark Rydell, as "Jeff Baker", became daytime's first major teen romance.
2
At age 18 she did a feature film for the Navy about VD entitled "It Could Happen to Your Kid Sister." She played the sobbing sister who contracted the disease.
3
First husband was actor Michael Thoma, who appeared in the series Fame (1982) and Eight Is Enough (1977). Second husband, Joe Patti, married since 1967, was a jazz drummer now retired.
4
Made her film debut at age 70+ as the title role in The Bread, My Sweet (2001) (aka "A Wedding for Bella") in 2001, co-starring Scott Baio.
5
In 2003 she returned to the New York stage in a production of "Killing Louise."
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