Morgan Brittany

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Morgan Brittany (born Suzanne Cupito on December 5, 1951 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film and television actress. She is possibly best-known for her role in the 1980s primetime soap opera Dallas, where she portrayed Katherine Wentworth, the scheming younger half-sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes.

Early career

Under her birth name, Brittany began her career as a child in 1960 in an episode of the original Twilight Zone series (Nightmare as a Child), as the little girl at the end of the episode, though she was uncredited. She subsequently appeared in the fourth season episode (Valley of the Shadow) as "Sissy Johnson" and the fifth season episode ("Caesar and Me") as "Susan." She discusses these parts in interviews for the Twilight Zone Definitive Edition DVDs (the season 4 and season 5 sets). She appeared on TV in a 1960 episode of Lloyd Bridges's Sea Hunt; in the 1962 film Gypsy as "Baby" June, (June Havoc). Although uncredited, she appeared in the birthday party scene in the 1963 movie The Birds. She also appeared on Bridges's CBS anthology series The Lloyd Bridges Show. She appeared in a 1967 episode of The Andy Griffith Show as "Mary Alice Carter", whom Opie Taylor (Ron Howard) asks out for his first date. She also appeared in the 1968 film, Yours, Mine and Ours, portraying Louise Beardsley.

Career as Morgan Brittany

After her successful career as a child actress, Morgan relocated to New York City where she became a model with the Ford Modeling Agency. She appeared in a multitude of national commercials and print ads including a 3 year stint as the "Ultra-Brite toothpaste" girl, L'Oreal cosmetics, Ford, Levi's, Camay soap and many more. In 1974 she was hired by the Japanese cosmetics company Kanebo to be the "face" of their product "Ireine". Morgan moved to Tokyo and represented that company for two years. In 1976 she returned to the United States and restarted her acting career. In 1976 Brittany portrayed Vivien Leigh in the biopic Gable and Lombard. That was followed by numerous movies of the week and episodic shows such as "The Initiation of Sarah" with Kay Lenz, "The Amazing Howard Hughes" with Tommy Lee Jones, and "LBJ, The Early Years" with Randy Quaid.

In November 1980, Morgan appeared in a Dukes of Hazzard episode titled "The Hazzardville Horror" as an heiress to an Addams Family-like haunted house. It is during that appearance that she met her future husband, stuntman Jack Gill. Her brief appearance as Vivien Leigh is the climax of the made-for-TV movie Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980). Because of that pivital moment, she came to the attention of the producers of "Dallas" who were searching for a new character to play the sister of Pamela Ewing.

Brittany first appeared on Dallas during the 1981-1982 season in a recurring role which continued for several seasons. In 1985, she returned for a brief cameo appearance in that season's finale. Thus, in 1987, Brittany made another brief return to the show in which Katherine came to visit Pam in the hospital after a car accident. This was Brittany's last appearance on Dallas.

In 1984, Brittany starred in her own short-lived ABC drama series, Glitter, opposite David Birney, as "Kate Simpson", a reporter at an entertainment magazine. She has also guest starred on a number of other prime time shows, such as Married... with Children as Marilyn Beamis in the episode "Life's a Beach" (1989), The Dukes of Hazzard, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote and Melrose Place, among others.

In 2002, Brittany had a small role in the film, The Biggest Fan. She also had a guest appearance on the television series Son of the Beach playing "Kimberlee's Mother" in 2002. She also appears in the 2007 film "Americanizing Shelley". Brittany appears in the 2010 docu-drama 1 a Minute. The documentary is being made by Namrata Singh Gujral and features cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith. She is currently a frequent guest on the Fox News Networks, "Hannity" show where she is a member of the "Great American Panel". Morgan travels extensively, fund-raising and bringing awareness to issues that affect the military and American values. She is also an advocate for child actors in Hollywood and along with former child star Paul Petersen, brought attention to the film Hounddog starring Dakota Fanning.

Personal life

Brittany is the mother of actress Katie Gill and actor/stuntman Cody Gill.

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