Sandahl Bergman

Sandahl Bergman is an American actress and dancer born on November 14, 1951, in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up in Prairie Village, Kansas, where she was raised by her parents, Howard and Polly Bergman, alongside her younger sister, Nanci Lee. Bergman attended Shawnee Mission East High School and began studying dance at the age of five, training in classical ballet, jazz, tap, and flamenco. She later studied flamenco specifically under dancer José Greco. Standing six feet tall, she began performing at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City at age twelve and joined a touring production of West Side Story at sixteen.

Bergman's Broadway career spanned from 1971 to 1997 and encompassed a range of productions. Choreographer Bob Fosse cast her as a replacement dancer in Pippin, and she went on to appear in Mack and Mabel, Coco, and the play Chicago. In 1973 she held a secondary lead in the stage production of Gigi. She later joined the cast of A Chorus Line in 1977, playing Judy as part of the company formed when many of the original cast members departed. Fosse cast her again in Dancin' in 1978, a dance concert musical that brought together many of Broadway's leading dancers at the time.

Before her stage work in New York, Bergman performed as a dancer on television variety programs including The Dean Martin Show, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, and Donny and Marie. Her film work began with a small role in the 1978 television film How to Pick Up Girls, followed by a featured appearance in Fosse's All That Jazz in 1979, in which she performed in the "Take Off with Us" sequence. She also appeared in the 1974 film Mame as a dancer.

In 1980, Bergman appeared in Xanadu as one of the nine immortal Muses, performing in both the opening number "I'm Alive" and the film's title sequence. The four months she spent in California filming Xanadu had an unintended consequence: her landlord discovered she had been subletting her New York apartment in violation of her rental contract, and she was evicted. Rather than return to New York, Bergman had her belongings shipped to California and relocated there permanently.

Her most prominent film role came in 1982 when she played Valeria, Queen of Thieves, opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. Because no stunt women could be found who matched her size, Bergman performed her own stunt work, which included extensive sword training and physical conditioning. She later recalled nearly losing a finger during a sword-fighting scene. The performance earned her both the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year as Actress and the Saturn Award for Best Actress.

Bergman continued working in film throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. In 1984 she played the title role in the post-apocalyptic comedy adventure She, and the following year appeared as the villain Queen Gedren in Red Sonja, a role she chose over the title part she had originally been offered. Additional film credits include Airplane II: The Sequel, in which she played a lunar base officer, the comedy Stewardess School in 1986, Hell Comes to Frogtown in 1988, and the neo-noir film Raw Nerve in 1991. She also appeared in the Fred Olen Ray film Possessed by the Night in 1994 and performed in a dance sequence choreographed by Stanley Donen for an episode of the television series Moonlighting. Guest appearances on Hart to Hart and a role in the music video "Heavy Metal Love" by the band Helix rounded out her television and video work during this period. Bergman additionally served as an instructor for the FIRM exercise video series in the 1980s. Her most recent film credit came in 2003 with an appearance as a dancer in the film adaptation of The Singing Detective. Following her retirement from acting, she has made occasional appearances at science-fiction conventions.