12 Facts About Janet Margolin

Janet Natalie Margolin was an American theater, television and film actress.

Janet Margolin's father, Benjamin Margolin, was a Russian Jewish accountant who founded the Nephrosis Foundation, now the Kidney Foundation of New York, and her mother, Annette, was a dental assistant.

Janet Margolin's father had many friends and clients who were associated with theater and would often ask her to audition for roles.

Until the late 1950s, Janet Margolin aspired to become a doctor, yet was always interested in acting and decided to give it a try following insistence from her father's friends.

Janet Margolin attended the High School of Performing Arts and, just prior to her graduation, did a screen test for Five Finger Exercise, where she was urged to sign a contract but declined, instead returning to New York.

Janet Margolin's earliest acting roles were in a commercial for Zest and several instalments in the soap opera The Edge of Night.

In 1961 at the age of 18, while a prop assistant at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Janet Margolin won a pivotal Broadway stage role as Anna in Morris West's Daughter of Silence, beating 200 other applicants.

In 1962, Janet Margolin played her first movie role as the female lead in David and Lisa and traveled to Argentina in 1964 to feature in The Eavesdropper, where upon her return she signed a 1-film-a-year contract with 20th Century Fox.

Janet Margolin co-starred with Marlon Brando in 1965's Morituri and with Steve McQueen in the western Nevada Smith.

In 1979, Janet Margolin co-starred with Roy Scheider in director Jonathan Demme's thriller Last Embrace.

Janet Margolin died of ovarian cancer at the age of 50 on December 17,1993, in her Los Angeles home.

Janet Margolin was cremated and her ashes were placed in an urn garden at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles.