Gretchen Corbett - Film and Television

Film and Television

One of Corbett's first television roles was on ABC's short-lived police detective show, N.Y.P.D., in 1968. In an episode called The Case of the Shady Lady, Corbett played a dancer who tries to make her husband's suicide into a murder for the insurance money. She had a supporting role in the film Out of It with Jon Voight, and minor role as a mute in the 1971 cult film Let's Scare Jessica to Death.

In 1973, Corbett moved to Los Angeles under contract to Universal Studios, as one of the last "contract players" of the studio contract system. While with Universal, she worked on virtually every major television series produced by the studio. Her first role under contract was an episode of the detective series Kojak, and roles followed on Wonder Woman, Emergency!, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, Columbo (1974) episode "An Exercise in Fatality", Gunsmoke, McMillan & Wife, Barbary Coast, Banacek, Family, Otherworld, Murder, She Wrote (1986) episode "Deadline for Murder", Cheers and Magnum, P.I. (1981) episode "The Curse of the King Kamehameha Club"

She starred in The Savage Bees (1976) with Ben Johnson and in The Jaws of Satan (1981) with Fritz Weaver and a very young Christina Applegate. She also starred in NBC's television film version of The Cay with James Earl Jones and in NBC's Farewell to Manzanar. In 1978, she appeared in The Other Side of the Mountain with Marilyn Hassett. She later appeared as a regular in a number of television series, including a recurring role on the hugely popular medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D., the short lived sci-fi fantasy drama Otherworld on CBS, NBC's detective drama Ellery Queen, and the popular soap opera Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.