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“When we measured heads in the eighth grade, mine was the biggest.”
Birthname:
Mary Lucy Denise Pudlowski
Hometown:
Chicago, Illinois
While a student at the University of Chicago, she originated the role of Marty in the pre-Broadway Kingston Mines production of Grease in 1971. When the show was discovered and moved to Broadway, she was asked to reprise the role however she chose instead to play Marty in the national touring company alongside John Travolta, who played Doody. Additional Broadway credits include Over Here! with John Travolta, revivals of Pal Joey, Chicago, Social Security and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife. Her first film appearance was in the 1977 sleeper hit Between The Lines co-starring then-unknowns Jeff Goldblum, Lindsay Crouse, John Heard and Jill Eikenberry.
Henner came to national prominence with the role of Elaine Nardo in the television series Taxi. She was the leading lady in the 1984 film Johnny Dangerously, playing love interest to Michael Keaton. She also appeared in Noises Off (1992), and in Man on the Moon (1999), a film about her Taxi co-star Andy Kaufman, she played both herself and her Taxi character.
From 1990 through 1994 she appeared opposite Burt Reynolds in the TV show Evening Shade, which also starred Ossie Davis and Hal Holbrook.
In 1994, she also hosted her own short-lived daytime talk show, Marilu.
She has authored eight books on diet and health, the most prominent being Total Health Makeover, in which she explains the virtues of a non-dairy diet in conjunction with food combining & exercise.
Several years ago, during an interview on the late-night NBC program Later, she revealed that she can remember what she did on any given date in the past. The host, Bob Costas chose to ask about July 20, 1969, the night of the first moon landing. Henner was briefly dumbstruck before revealing that she had lost her virginity that night in the shower, to which Costas replied, "At least we know Neil Armstrong wasn't the culprit." (See hyperthymesia.) Similar to the "ax-throwing incident" on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, this spontaneous moment was used often in Later anniversary clip shows.
Henner starred in the Brooks & Dunn video "You Can't Take The Honky Tonk Out of The Girl" in late 2003.
In 2005 and 2006, Henner was the host of the television series America's Ballroom Challenge. Henner said on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres show in early 2008 that she has never actually danced ballroom and would like to go on a season of Dancing With The Stars. She later hosted FitTV and The Discovery Channel's Shape Up Your Life, is based on her books.
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