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Audrey Landers

Audrey Landers is an American actress and singer whose career moves comfortably between television, film, music and work behind the camera. Born in Philadelphia on July 18, 1956, she built an unusually varied résumé, also working as a screenwriter, composer, lyricist, director, dancer and musician. Before joining Dallas, Landers appeared across a broad stretch of popular television, guest-starring in The Dukes of Hazzard, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat and Battlestar Galactica. She also crossed into the game-show world as a panelist on Match Game in 1979 and Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour in 1983–84. On Dallas, she played Afton Cooper, a role she would return to decades later for several episodes of the revival’s second season in 2013. After leaving Dallas in 1984, Landers was cast by director Richard Attenborough as Val Clarke in the 1985 film adaptation of A Chorus Line. The part made useful room for the combination of acting, singing and dancing that runs throughout her career. Her later television work included the Jackie Collins miniseries Lucky Chances and a regular daytime role on One Life to Live. From 1990 to 1992, she played Charlotte Hesser, the eldest daughter of Pennsylvania mob boss Carlo Hesser. Landers also turned her attention to creating family entertainment. Inspired by her young sons, she developed the children’s television series The Huggabug Club in 1996, writing its scripts as well as more than 250 original songs. Her mother and creative partner, Ruth Landers, produced the series and donated it to Public Television, where it ran for five years. In 2006, Audrey Landers co-wrote and co-directed the family adventure film Circus Island. It is a career shaped not only by recurring screen roles, but by a willingness to write, compose and direct the material around them.