Perhaps best known for her trademark curly blond tresses and her faithful appearances at L.A. Lakers basketball games, Dyan Cannon has enjoyed nearly forty years in the entertainment industry. Born in Tacoma, Washington, Cannon had early dreams of becoming an actress. She made her screen debut with a small part in the critically acclaimed crime drama The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond. A short-lived TV series and The Black Rebels followed that same year. It was during this time that she caught the eye of one of Hollywood's favorite leading men, Cary Grant, who was 35 years her senior. The couple, a hotbed of Hollywood gossip, experienced an on-again, off-again relationship until marrying in 1962. Cannon left her acting career behind during her short-lived marriage to Grant and bore his daughter, Jennifer Grant, in 1966. Cannon and Grant were divorced in 1968, and she returned to the big screen in 1969 in the pop-culture classic Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. A series of less-than-remarkable TV and feature films followed in the early '70s, but comedies proved her most successful medium. Cannon again was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Heaven Can Wait, where she played a money-hungry, adulterous wife who hatches a plot to kill her husband only to find that another man has been reincarnated via her husband's body. The multi-talented Cannon, who is also a singer/songwriter, found success behind the camera as well as in front of it. In 1976, she produced, directed, wrote and edited the short film Number One, an Academy Award nominee for Best Short Film-Live Action. The tedious experience of wearing so many hats deterred her from writing and directing again until 1991, with the release of The End of Innocence. She gave a strong and critically acclaimed performance in the picture, but it received a lukewarm response overall. The '80s and '90s found Cannon on the small screen more often than the big one, as she starred in several made-for-TV movies and made guest appearances in numerous series. Most notable was her recurring role on the hit show Ally McBeal, where in 1997-98 she played Judge Jennifer "Whipper" Cone in several episodes of the wacky comedy/drama. Though it's been 20 years since Cannon scored a major movie success and she's outgrown her sexpot image (early nude photos of the actress are still in circulation), she continues to find respectable roles in decent-though-not-great films, most recently Drop-Dead (1998); Out to Sea with the aging comedy duo of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon; 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag and That Darn Cat.
Mother of Jennifer Grant (b.1966) Always seen courtside at Los Angeles Lakers home basketball games. Attended the University of Washington, Seattle, but didn't graduate. 'Miss West Seattle' of 1955. "Discovered" while having lunch on the Sunset Strip. Got her stage name from producer Jerry Wald who said he kept seeing something explosive in her. Her commitment to Christianity has led her to hold twice-monthly revival-style Bible study meetings on the CBS studio lot. In the early 1970s, Paramount had plans that were unrealized to remake Double Indemnity with Cannon in the Barbara Stanwyck role. Wanted a nose job early in her career, but a doctor told her she had a beautiful nose and wasnt going to do anything to it. She then decided not to get the nose job.