An actress who starred alongside some of the top names of the 1970s and 1980s was spotted running errands in Los Angeles this week.
At the height of her stardom, she starred in an on-screen love triangle with Bernadette Peters and Steve Martin in one of the latter’s most beloved films.
She also co-starred with Neil Diamond and Laurence Olivier in a 1980 remake of the first feature film, and her later career included one of the installments in the Underworld franchise under the direction of Kate Beckinsale.
Over the years, she has shown her versatility by directing projects such as an Emmy-winning TV special under the direction of then 13-year-old Ben Affleck.
Now 75, she works largely as an acting teacher whose website says she has coached Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Amy Adams, Zoe Saldana, Naomi Watts and Jane Fonda.
Can you guess who she is?
An actress who starred alongside some of the top names of the 1970s and 1980s was spotted running errands in Los Angeles this week
Now 75, she works largely as an acting teacher whose website says she has coached Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Amy Adams, Zoe Saldana, Naomi Watts and Jane Fonda.
At the height of her stardom, she starred in an on-screen love triangle with Bernadette Peters and Steve Martin in one of his most beloved hit films.
She is none other than Catlin Adams, best known for her role as the tough biker Patty Bernstein in the 1979 film The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner.
Although she briefly captivates Steve Martin’s title character and takes his virginity, he is soon lured away by the charms of the film’s leading lady, played by Martin’s real-life girlfriend Bernadette Peters.
Adams got the part by throwing herself into her audition so enthusiastically that, in a moment of improvisation, she ripped open Martin’s shirt and bit one of his nipples.
Although Martin had already become a household name on Saturday Night Live, Adams, who did not own a television set, did not know who he was.
Born Nira Barab in Los Angeles in 1950, she caught the acting bug at the age of four and by fourteen had become the youngest student at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.
She gained her observer status because of a chance meeting at home with Anna Mizrahi, her parents’ acquaintance, who was dating at the time and eventually became Strasberg’s third and final wife, Adams said. The Wordslinger Podcast.
Early in her showbiz life, Adams also studied with legendary acting coaches like Stella Adler and Sanford Meisner, both of whose methods she incorporated into her own teaching when she entered the profession.
Under her original name, she began her acting career in the late 1960s, working in TV shows such as The Rat Patrol, Adam-12 and McMillan & Wife.
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She is none other than Catlin Adams, best known for her role as the tough biker Patty Bernstein in the 1979 film The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner.
Although she briefly entrances Steve Martin’s title character and takes his virginity, he is soon thereafter lured away by the charms of Bernadette Peters’ character.
In 1980, she starred opposite Neil Diamond in a remake of The Jazz Singer, the 1927 Al Jolson musical that was the first “talkie” in film history.
In 1974, she became a founding member of The Groundlings when the Los Angeles improv troupe was launched by Gary Austin, the year before Lorne Michaels recruited one of its stars Laraine Newman for the first season of Saturday Night Live.
In the mid-1970s, Adams starred in TV movies such as Katherine, a thinly veiled story about the Weather Underground starring Sissy Spacek and Henry Winkler, and Panic in Echo Park, an epidemic drama led by Adams and Dorian Harewood.
The Jerk propelled her to new heights of fame, and in 1980 she appeared in a supporting role in a remake of The Jazz Singer, the 1927 Al Jolson musical that was the first “talkie” in the history of cinema.
Adams’ version was directed by Neil Diamond and featured Laurence Olivier, as well as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s ‘nepo baby’ Lucie Arnaz.
In 1986, Adams directed an Emmy-winning ABC Afterschool Special called Wanted: The Perfect Guy, starring Ben Affleck as a 13-year-old boy desperate to find a date for his lonely mother, played by comedy legend Madeline Kahn, who appeared in a string of Mel Brooks hits including Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein.
In 1986, Adams directed an Emmy-winning ABC Afterschool Special called Wanted: The Perfect Guy, starring 13-year-old Ben Affleck and comedy icon Madeline Kahn.
Adams’ directing career progressed with the 1988 crime film Sticky Fingers, fronted by Helen Slater and Melanie Mayron, plus an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.
Over the past decades, she has developed into a top-level acting coach in Hollywood website includes a formidable client list littered with names like Michael Douglas, Lily Tomlin, Charlie Hunnam, Rachel Weisz, Jamie Bell and Megan Fox.
‘I love all the actors, I really do. I’ve hardly met an actor I don’t like,” she said, before confessing, “I don’t like rap singers who become actors. Those are my hard ones. They are difficult for me, so I charge them a fortune.’
Adams’ on-screen career continued with projects like the 2012 film Underworld: Awakening, starring her student Kate Beckinsale in the role that catapulted her to instant icon status: the gun-toting vampire Selene.
