Beverly D'Angelo

Beverly Heather D'Angelo is an American actress and musician born on November 15, 1951, in Columbus, Ohio. Her father, Eugene Constantino D'Angelo Jr., was a bass player and television station manager at WBNS-TV in Columbus, and was of Italian descent, with paternal grandparents Eugenio and Rosina D'Angelo originating from Introdacqua in the Abruzzo region of Italy. Her mother, Priscilla Ruth D'Angelo, was a violinist. D'Angelo has three brothers named Jeff, Tim, and Tony. Her maternal grandfather, Howard Dwight Smith, was the architect who designed Ohio Stadium at Ohio State University, known as "the Horseshoe." She attended Upper Arlington High School in Upper Arlington, Ohio, and in 2009 received the Upper Arlington Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award.

Before pursuing acting, D'Angelo worked as an illustrator at Hanna-Barbera Studios and as a singer. During a period living in Canada, she served as a backup singer for rockabilly musician Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins and his band The Hawks, who later became The Band. She launched her acting career in the theatre, making her Broadway debut in 1976 in Rockabye Hamlet, a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet also known as Kronborg: 1582. That same year she made her television debut in the first three episodes of the miniseries Captains and the Kings.

Following a minor role in Annie Hall in 1977, D'Angelo appeared in a series of films in the late 1970s, including Every Which Way but Loose, Hair, and Coal Miner's Daughter. Her portrayal of Patsy Cline in Coal Miner's Daughter earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture, and she won a Country Music Association Award for Album of the Year in connection with that work. In 1983, she took on the role of Ellen Griswold opposite Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Vacation, a part she reprised in four sequels: National Lampoon's European Vacation in 1985, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in 1989, Vegas Vacation in 1997, and Vacation in 2015, as well as the 2010 short film Hotel Hell Vacation. Her other film credits from the 1980s include Maid to Order in 1987 and High Spirits in 1988. In 1998, she played Doris Vinyard, the mother of Edward Norton's character, in the crime drama American History X.

D'Angelo received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1984 television film A Streetcar Named Desire. Her television movie credits also include Slow Burn in 1986, Hands of a Stranger in 1987, Judgment Day: The John List Story in 1993, Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills in 1994, and Sweet Temptation in 1996. In 1992, she guest-starred in the third season of The Simpsons as Lurleen Lumpkin in the episode "Colonel Homer," returning to the same role in the nineteenth season episode "Papa Don't Leech" in 2008, and again in season 36 in 2025. From 2005 to 2011, she appeared in the HBO series Entourage as agent Barbara "Babs" Miller, and she held a recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as defense attorney Rebecca Balthus. In 2008, she appeared in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay and The House Bunny, and in 2022 she played Gertrude in the Christmas action comedy Violent Night. In 2014, she was cast alongside Chevy Chase in the ABC comedy pilot Chev & Bev, though the network did not proceed with a series.

D'Angelo returned to the stage in 1994, winning a Theatre World Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway production of Simpatico. She narrates a short biographical film about Patsy Cline that has been shown to visitors of The Patsy Cline Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, since the museum opened on April 7, 2017.

In her personal life, D'Angelo was romantically involved with director Miloš Forman, who directed her in Hair. In 1981, she married Italian nobleman Don Lorenzo Salviati, the only son and heir of Don Forese Salviati, 5th Duke Salviati. She later had a relationship with production designer Anton Furst, who died by suicide in 1991. From 1997 to 2003, she was in a relationship with actor Al Pacino, with whom she had twins conceived through IVF — a son and a daughter born on January 25, 2001.