Marj Dusay: Dead at 83!

Marj Dusay, 'Star Trek' Actress and Veteran Soap Opera Player, Dies at 83

She also appeared on 'The Facts of Life' and 'The Odd Couple' and played the wife of a war hero in 'MacArthur.'

Marj Dusay, who played an alien who stole Spock's brain on Star Trek and worked on five daytime soap operas during her career, has died. She was 83.

Dusay died Tuesday, her stepdaughter Elizabeth Perine reported on Facebook. "She was quite a woman and had quite a grand life," she wrote.

Dusay also portrayed the mother of Lisa Whelchel's Blair Warner on NBC's The Facts of Life and appeared opposite Gregory Peck as the wife of Gen. Douglas MacArthur in MacArthur (1977).

The Kansas native stepped in for the late Carolyn Jones as Myrna Clegg on CBS' Capitol in 1983 and went on to play Pamela Capwell Conrad on NBC's Santa Barbara, Vivian Alamain on NBC's Days of Our Lives, the evil Vanessa Bennett on ABC's All My Children and Alexandra Spaulding on CBS' The Guiding Light.

Born Marjorie Mahoney on Feb. 20, 1936, she was raised in Russell, Kansas, and attended Kansas University. She began a modeling career in New York when she and her husband, John Dusay, moved there for his medical internship.

In Los Angeles, she became a member of The Session, an improvisational comedy troupe formed by Rob Reiner.

Dusay made her big-screen debut in the Elvis Presley movie Clambake (1967) and then appeared with Sandy Dennis in Sweet November (1968).

On the September 1968 Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain," which kicked off the show's third and final season, Dusay's Kara beams aboard the Enterprise, removes Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) brain and takes it with her to her planet.

The actress was memorable on the 1971 Odd Couple episode "What Does a Naked Lady Say to You?" when Oscar (Jack Klugman) discovers that her character, Felix's (Tony Randall) new girlfriend, is performing in a nude play.

Dusay also appeared on dozens of other shows including Hogan's Heroes, Mod Squad, Get Smart, Mannix, Phyllis, Barnaby Jones, Hart to Hart and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Dusay starred in All My Children as Vanessa Bennett for various episodes from 1998 through 2002. However, the actress was best known for her role as Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light.In her career, Dusay had been nominated for Daytime Emmy Awards on two occasions — once in 1995 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series honoring her role in Guiding Light. She also received a special fan award nomination at the 2002 ceremony for America's Favorite Villain recognizing her role as Vanessa Cortland in               All My Children.

Stars took to social media to remember Marj Dusay (ex-Alexandra, GUIDING LIGHT et al), who passed away at the age of 83. On-screen son, Vincent Irizarry (ex-Lujack/Nick, GL) posted, “Honestly, not enough words for me to share my love and respect for, and sadness in the passing of our now late, great Marj Dusay. She was a force of nature as an actress, courageously pulling out all stops in whatever role she was gracing us with. Not only did she play my motherOpens in a new Window. on two different shows, 2 very different characters, but in one of those shows she was brought in to replace the ever brilliant, incomparable Beverlee McKinsey when she left the role of Alexandra Spaulding on GL; a feat practically no other actress could have been able to accomplish. But Marj was never just any other actress, as she proved by making the role her own; doing so while sharing her dynamic brilliance with us as well… I reached out to her a couple months back, having heard that she was having a difficult time with some physical challenges as of late. I’m grateful to have heard her voice one last time, to have heard her infectious laughter one last time… RIP darling Marj. Your gift was our blessing.” Ron Raines (ex-Alan, GL) tweeted, “Heartbroken by the loss of my dear friend and colleague Marj Dusay. Marj was a dear friend to me and I will miss her greatly. I, with a couple of other GL colleagues, visited her last year here in New York and we all had a wonderful visit. She was, as always, in terrific spirits And made us laugh a lot. We all talked of specific memories we shared with her while on set. Marj lived with much physical pain the last decades of her life however, and this is what’s amazing, she never complained. I will miss her and glad she is pain free now. RIP dear Marj.” 

Robin Strasser (ex-Dorian, ONE LIFE TO LIVE) wrote, “HUGELY TALENTED & Stunning looking #MarjDusay When she stepped on a set everything was better because she showed up-Classy & impeccable-never stuck on herself-A wonderful human being RIP.” 

Tina Sloan (ex-Lillian, GL) tweeted, “Lost the wonderful Marj Dusay aka Alexandra Spaulding. Great actress. Great woman. She will be very missed. RIP MARJ.” Carrie Genzel (ex-Skye, ALL MY CHILDREN) tweeted, “I am heartbroken to hear of the passing of #MarjDusayOpens in a new Window.. We had mutual friends in NYC and she was always so welcoming and wonderful to me. My heart goes out to her friends and family, and,her many fans who appreciated her on and off camera.”

The Wonderful World of Gaultier

One foot through the door of the Barbican Centre in London and you know that you’re not stepping into another exhibition. You are, in fact, travelling to another world – one of fashion that’s unique from the others; one that is highlighted by history, humour and honesty. The exhibit is titled ‘The Fashion world of Jean Paul Gaultier: from the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’ and is the first major exhibition devoted to the enfant terrible of fashion.

Jean Paul Gaultier (pronounced zhahn pall gol-tyay) has to his career, over three decades of couture meets high camp fashion. He’s a showman and a feminist who celebrates sexual empowerment and unique beauty.

Jean Paul Gaultier (pronounced zhahn pall gol-tyay) has to his career, over three decades of couture meets high camp fashion. He’s a showman and a feminist who celebrates sexual empowerment and unique beauty.

Gaultier’s theatrics and originality can be experienced at each stage of the exhibit amongst a riot of sensory movement. Over 165 couture and ready-to-wear (yes! Madge’s Blonde Ambition corset was on display too) are showcased through eight themes – The Odyssey of Jean Paul Gaultier, Punk Cancan, Muses, The Boudoir, Metropolis, Eurotrash, Skin Deep and Urban Jungle. The clothes were interspersed with Gaultier memorabilia from his childhood to career in forms of sketches, video, mechanical runway, photographs and even toys.

Gaultier signs off at the Barbican. The designer claims he is the ‘French Frog’ among English Beef.

The designs are displayed on ‘living’ mannequins that are dramatically-lit, within arm’s reach (you can really get up close and personal). With faces projected on their head, these couture dolls make eye contact, blow kisses, sing and talk to the visitors – I’m not kidding, I think one was flirting with me! There’s even one of Jean Paul Gaultier himself, dressed in his signature breton stripes and a kilt. ‘The Frog’ personally introduces you to his world and here’s a tiny glimpse of what I learnt about him…

Unlike a lot of young designers, Gaultier was never formally trained as a designer. A 1945 film called Falbalas triggered his desire to make clothes for a living. He discovered haute couture skills by working with Pierre Cardin and Jean Patou in the early ’70s. He went on to set up his own company in 1976 designing women’s prat, after which there was no looking back – he launched his menswear in 1983, his couture house in 1997 and from 2004-2010, he designed 2 collections a year for Hermès (besides four of his own).

When Gaultier was in elementary school, he had watched a TV show in which nude dancers performed in the theatre. The next day, he drew a showgirl in fishnet stockings and ostritch feathers. His teacher saw this and made him get up on the platform, beat him on his knuckles with a ruler, pinned the drawing to his back and paraded him around the classrooms. The experience, which normally would’ve traumatized any child, inspired Jean Paul Gaultier’s career.

His maternal grandmother, Marie, had a profound influence on Gaultier. According to him, Marie was supremely elegant and different from others; she was old fashioned with a wonderful sense of style. As a little boy, he was fascinated by her wardrobe of old fashioned corsets and waist cinchers, a fascination that was to later develop into one of his signatures: underwear as outerwear and the infamous conical bra. Her wardrobe also inspired the shape of his classic perfume bottle launched in 1993. Uncommon in France during the time, she owned a television in the 1960s and allowed her grandson to watch whatever he liked, enabling him to develop a critical and analytical sense of fashion.

At a young age, his mother dressed him in sailor striped sweaters and jumpers. Besides his grandmother, Popeye, Coco Chanel, Jean Genet and Tom of Finland hugely influence Gaultier’s style. Nautical symbols have always been a strong part of his designs especially Rainer Werener Fassbinder’s film, Querelle. According to Gaultier, “The lead character was the ultimate sailor, hyper sexualized gay symbol a fantasy an icon a form of virility that could be ambiguous.”

Anyone who knows Jean Paul Gaultier knows that Breton stripes are a design staple that are often reworked into his collections. He loves their graphic and architectural aspects, and the fact that they go with everything and will never go out of style. Apart from the Breton stripes, the Gaultier house codes are sailor ensembles, lingerie, tattoos, pale boudoir pink, mermaids, virgins and tightly corseted femmes fatales.

As a child, Gaultier suffered from his different sexual identity, one of the reasons which led him to explore transgendered and hyper-sexualized designs in his career. 30 years later, he continues to do the same – allowing men to express their fragility and sensitivity and women to assert their ‘masculine’ sides through his designs. He says,”Except for the medival codpiece and the bra, garments never have a gender.”

When Gaultier showed men in skirts for the first time, 30 Vogue staffers stood up mid-show and left, shortly followed by Marie Claire and French Elle. “I was slated by the French press for designing clothes for hairdressers and homosexuals! It took them two years to accept my statement that Prince Charles is not the only real man to wear a skirt,” said Jean Paul Gaultier to Face Magazine in 1986.

In 1989, he released Aow Tou Dou Zat, a dance track he created with British music producer, Tony Mansfield. The track was a sound collage of an excerpt from his BBC interview in1987. Isn’t ze accent fahbulous?!

Ever since Jean Paul Gaultier was a child, his attention was always drawn to different looking and unconventional women. He refused to follow industry trends and casted virile, unusual beauties as models. One of his ads placed in the classifieds of the French daily Libération read, ‘non conformist designer seeks unusual models – the conventionally pretty need not apply’. 

Gaultier is naturally attracted to unique women like Beth Ditto, Rossy de Palma, Grace Jones, Amy Winehouse – his eternal muse being model Farida Khelfa who is now the spokeswoman for Schiaparelli. He was also the first designer to work with androgynous models like Terry Toy and Andrej Peljić. Jean Paul Gaultier is one of the few in the industry who gives fashion the pedestal of expression, inclusivity and a celebration of diversity.

In 1993, Gaultier was invited to host a camp show called Eurotrash, a cult classic of late night British TV. It was described as the rudest show in the history of British television! He left the show in 1997 to launch his couture label.

From his first visit to the city in the ’70s, Jean Paul Gaultier has had a longstanding love affair with London. Its spirit and peculiar characters – particularly the seamless mixture of the various London subcultures, like the punks, dandies and rockers – has been permanently ingrained within him. He often visited the city over weekends to spend time at the flea markets and underground clubs of Camden and Portobello.

Nana, the teddy bear, was the first to witness the creative genius of Jean Paul Gaultier. He created conical shaped falsies from newspaper for it, similar to the infamous bra that Madonna wore 30 years later in her Blonde Ambition tour. He completed the look by making Nana a bias skirt by cutting a hole in his grandmother’s doily – this was when he had no clue what a bias cut was! A true prodigy, I say!

The Life of Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean-Paul Gaultier is a French designer known for his influential designs, especially the creation of Madonna’s infamous conical bras for her 1990 Blond Ambition tour.

Jean-Paul Gaultier is a French fashion designer born on April 24, 1952 in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France. At age 18, he joined the house of Pierre Cardin before moving on to Jacques Esterel and Patou. The debut of Gaultier’s own collection was in 1976, but he did not officially launch his own design house until 1982. 

His style is known to challenge standard views of fashion. He collaborated with Madonna in 1990 to create her infamous conical bras. In 2003, he became head designer at Hermes where he worked until 2011. Diet Coke appointed Gaultier as its new creative director in 2012.

The only child of a bookkeeper and a cashier, Jean Paul Gaultier developed a taste for fashion at a young age. He spent much of his childhood with his maternal grandmother, and found inspiration in her closet - her corsets in particular fascinated him. He even once made a bra for a stuffed bear - a childhood artifact that was featured later in an exhibition of his work.At only 13 years old, Gaultier came up with designs for his grandmother and his mother. He loved fashion magazines and kept up with the latest designers. And like the top designers, Gaultier began to develop his own collections. He sent off some of his sketches to several Parisian designers, and landed a job with designer Pierre Cardin on his eighteenth birthday. 

It was his first experience with formal design training.Gaultier started his career as an assistant for Cardin in 1970 and then moved to Jean Patou the following year. Around this time, Gaultier was also influenced by the work of Yves Saint Laurent. Gaultier eventually returned to Cardin, before working as a designer in the Philippines.

In 1976, Gaultier established his own fashion label and held his first runway show in Paris. He opened his business with the assistance of his significant other, Francis Menuge, and together they helped establish the Jean Paul Gaultier brand. Gaultier received later financial backing from Kashiyama, a Japanese clothing company.

Before long, Gaultier became known as the bad boy of the fashion world. He challenged popular notions of gender and drew from edgy street and punk influences. One early look he created for women involved mixing a tough leather jacket with a crinoline skirt with sneakers. Gaultier put undergarments front center with his corset dresses, which debuted in 1983. Two years later unveiled his skirts for men, another effort by the designer to subvert gender stereotypes. He also defied expectations with his runway shows, developing a reputation for over-the-top spectacles. 

Often wearing his trademark kilt and Breton striped-sweater, Gaultier quickly became one of fashion's most high-profile figures.

In 1990, Gaultier suffered a personal and professional loss when his partner Francis Menuge died of AIDS. Gaultier didn't succumb to the setback, though. That same year he created one of his signature looks that the same year as the costume designer for Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour. She appeared on stage wearing a cone-shaped bra under a men's style suit with strategic slashes in the front.

 The cone bra, which seemed to be a fusion of antique and futuristic lingerie, earned Gaultier new levels of attention from the fashion world.

A few years later, Gaultier launched his first perfume and hosted his own television show Eurotrash. He also used his great imagination to design costumes for such films as The City of Lost Children and The Fifth Element starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich. In 1997, Gaultier launched his first couture line.

If not a young rebel any longer, Gaultier remains one of fashion's most innovative and creative designers. He partnered with the French fashion house Hermés in 1999, selling it a 35 percent stake in his business (which later grew to 45 percent). During his time with Hermés, Gaultier also served as the artistic director of the company's women's wear line in addition to designing his own clothes.

Gaultier continues to expand his business in new directions, adding several new fragrances and launching a children's clothing line. He has also become a favorite for many celebrities, including Naomi Watts, Marion Cotillard, and Nicole Kidman. Kidman wore one of his dresses to accept the Best Actress honors at the 2003 Academy Awards. Cotillard dressed in Gaultier for her Oscar win in 2008 as well. Continuing to work behind the scenes, Gaultier has created more designs for stage and film. He created the costumes for Kylie Minogue's X Tour in 2008 and for filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar's Bad Education (2004) and The Skin I Live In (2011).

Also in 2011, Gaultier ended his relationship with Hermés. Puig, a Spanish perfume and fashion giant, bought a 60 percent stake in his company in May. He told WWD that he was "thrilled" with the sale. "They are buying Gaultier for Gaultier, not to turn it into something else."

2020 of January 24th, Jean Paul Gaultier retired from the World of Fashion!