Early Life
Born in Bellflower, California, Colleen Applegate grew up in the small town of Farmington, Minnesota. Her family moved there in 1973, when her father took a managerial position with Central Telephone Company of Minnesota. Colleen was a cheerleader in high school and graduated from Farmington High in 1981. She stayed in the small town, working first as a cashier and then as a repair clerk with the phone company. There, one night in December that year, she consumed a handful of prescription sinus pills in a suicide gesture.
In PBS' Frontline: "Death of a Porn Queen" profile (episode 5.13, U.S. airdate 8 June 1987), her father, Phil Applegate, admitted that he never discussed the suicide attempt with his daughter; he and his wife at the time (Colleen's mother, Karen Applegate) believed their daughter was merely seeking attention. According to the Frontline piece, the entire family had at least one group session at a counseling center during which no one really talked about the situation.
In March 1982, when the news spread about her overdose, Applegate ran away from home with her boyfriend, Mike Marcell, and moved to California. Applegate left behind her parents, a brother, and three sisters.
Read more about this topic: Shauna Grant
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome—not by favor of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of “public relations.” Without it, America would be grim indeed.”
—Anita Loos (1888–1981)