Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:03, 24 September 2014

Heather Langenkamp
Langenkamp at a celebrity autograph collector's convention in Burbank, California, 2008
Born	Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (1964-07-17) July 17, 1964 (age 60) Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Other names	Heather Langenkamp-Anderson
Occupation(s)	Actress Composer Make-up artist Director Producer
Years active	1983–present
Spouse(s)	Alan Pasqua (1984-1987) David LeRoy Anderson (1989-present)

Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (born July 17, 1964) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Nancy Thompson from the A Nightmare on Elm Street films and she served as executive producer and narrator to the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. She is also known for her role as Marie Lubbock on the sitcom Just the Ten of Us and has had numerous television guest appearances. In 2011, she released I Am Nancy which focuses on her iconic role as Nancy Thompson.

Life and career

1964-83: Early life and career beginnings

Langenkamp was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother, Mary Alice (née Myers), is an artist, and her father, Robert Dobie Langenkamp, is a petroleum attorney who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy in both the Carter Administration (where he was largely responsible for realizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) and the Clinton Administration (where he was largely responsible for privatizing Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1), and as Director of the National Energy & Environmental Law & Policy Institute of the University of Tulsa College of Law. She has German, English, and Scottish ancestry. Langenkamp attended Holland Hall School in Tulsa. She graduated from The National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C. Langenkamp's first acting venture was in her late teens: a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983), filmed to a large extent in her hometown of Tulsa and in Rumble Fish. She managed to be an extra in both films but her scenes were cut out of both of the final films.

1984-88: A Nightmare on Elm Street and early success

Langenkamp then starred in Nickel Mountain (1984) which gained mostly positive reviews. While she was studying at Stanford University, Langenkamp rose to prominence when Wes Craven cast her as teen heroine Nancy Thompson in the hugely successful A Nightmare on Elm Street, the first film in the series as he wanted someone very 'non-Hollywood' to play Nancy. He believed that Langenkamp met this quality. For the part she beat out more than 200 actresses. The film follows the story of a group of teenagers who are killed in their dreams one-by-one by a supernatural serial killer. The film was a slasher film. This film rose Langenkamp to prominence and is credited for launching her career.

The film introduced the iconic villain Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund. Langenkamp was cast along with Johnny Depp, in his feature film debut, played Nancy Thompson's boyfriend, Glen Lantz, and Veteran film actor John Saxon who played Nancy's father, police lieutenant Donald Thompson. The film was both a critical and commercial success, earning a total of $25 million at the American box office. In 1985, she received the Best Actress Award at the Avoriaz Film Festival for this role. She also became one of the original scream queens.

She continued her role as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), in which she co-starred alongside Patricia Arquette and Laurence Fishburne. The film gained generally positive reviews and was a commercial success. John Saxon and Robert Englund also returned with Langenkamp in Dream Warriors. In between starring roles, she played Marie Lubbock on the television series Just the Ten of Us, which received critical acclaim. It was a spin-off of the popular situation comedy Growing Pains (on which Langenkamp guest-starred), from 1988 to 1990. That same year, she and her castmates were nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor/Actress Ensemble in a Television Comedy, Drama Series or Special. She has also made numerous other guest appearances on television. In 1989, she had a cameo role as a victim in Wes Craven's Shocker.

1989-present: Dream Warriors, New Nightmare and continued success

In 1994, Langenkamp returned to the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise when she starred as herself in the critically and commercially successful film New Nightmare alongside Robert Englund.

Langenkamp and her husband, David Leroy Anderson, own and operate AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up firm that is credited with the special make-up for many successful films such as Dawn of the Dead, The Cabin in the Woods, Cinderella Man, Dogtown and Z-Boys, Frost/Nixon, Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty, Dragonfly and Angels and Demons. She also starred in, executive produced, and narrated the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, which was directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch. Langenkamp also directed a biographical documentary entitled I Am Nancy in 2010 which was a critical success. In 2013, Langenkamp had a supporting role in the film, Star Trek Into Darkness which was critically and commercially successful. She is set to star in the upcoming movies, Home (2014) and Getting the Kinks Out (2015).

Personal life

Langenkamp is a businesswoman, who acts part-time. She and her husband own AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up Studio in Los Angeles. Years ago, she created and ran The Malibu Gum Factory, now closed, which sold chewing gum packaged with trading cards depicting local surfers.

Many elements of the plot for Wes Craven's New Nightmare are based on an incident in Langenkamp received numerous threatening letters from an obsessed fan after the cancellation of "Just the Ten of Us".

Filmography

Film

Television

Other works

References

1. Google Books
2. The New York Times
3. Google Books
4. M. A. Langenkamp—Biography
5. Michael Smith, "Scream queen: Tulsa native may be remembered best for her link to Freddy", Tulsa World, October 30, 2009,
6. Wn.com
7. http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Heather-Langenkamp---Her-Life-and-Career-138940.html
8. A Nightmare on Elm Street DVD (2001, New Line Cinema Entertainment).
9. Heather Langenkamp interview at The Arrow; last accessed November 23, 2007.
10. A Nightmare on Elm Street business statistics at Internet Movie Database; last accessed December 15, 2007.
11. Heather Langenkamp Explains Why You Should Never Sleep Again
12. Never Sleep Again Official Site
13. Never Sleep Again Website Online This Friday
14. Never Sleep Again Twitterfeed Continues!
15. "I Am NANCY" Documentary
16. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000486/
17. http://games.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/108418%7C0/Heather-Langenkamp/

External links

• Heather Langenkamp at IMDb
• Heather Langenkamp at the TCM Movie Database
• Template:Amg name
• Template:Myspace

Template:Persondata

• 1964 births
• Actresses from Oklahoma
• American film actresses
• American television actresses
• Booker T. Washington High School (Tulsa, Oklahoma) alumni
• Living people
• People from Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Stanford University alumni
• American people of German descent
• 20th-century American actresses
• 21st-century American actresses