A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Alias:
Elizabeth Russell
貝西·羅素
Birthplace:
San Diego, California, USA
Born:
September 6, 1963
Elizabeth "Betsy" Russell (born September 6, 1963) is an American actress who is best known for her roles in Private School (1983), Tomboy (1985), and as Jill Tuck, one of the primary characters of the Saw film series from 2006 to 2010. Russell was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Constance (née Lerner) and Richard Lion Russell, a stock analyst, and the granddaughter of journalist and educator Max Lerner. Her father and maternal grandfather were Jewish. Russell wanted to be an actress since the age of eight and started acting in school plays. She appeared in a Pepsi commercial that was taped locally while in high school. After graduating from Mission Bay High School in 1981, she moved to Los Angeles and began taking acting classes before landing her first role. She did a masters program in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica and is a certified hypnotist and life coach, also from the University of Santa Monica. Russell's first role was in the 1982 film Let's Do It! That same year, she landed roles on T. J. Hooker, Family Ties, and The Powers of Matthew Star. In 1983, Russell's breakout role came as Jordan Leigh-Jensen in the sex comedy Private School. While shooting the action film Avenging Angel, she was offered to audition for the 1985 film Silverado but turned it down. She said in an interview, "Everything happens for a reason. I always believe my career would have been different had I done that part. I can't say if it would have been better or worse. I’ve had a great run." She went on to star in a series of B movies in the 1980s, including the comedy Tomboy and the slasher film Cheerleader Camp. Russell also appeared on TV series such as The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, 1st & Ten, and an episode of Superboy, which was a reunion with her Tomboy co-star Gerard Christopher. Russell resides in Malibu, California. In August 1988, Russell was engaged to actor Vincent Van Patten, son of Dick Van Patten. They were married nine months later on May 27, 1989, in North Hollywood. Their wedding reception was at Van Patten's father's Sherman Oaks home which was attended by numerous A-list celebrities. They divorced in 2001 and have two sons: Richard Van Patten (March 1993) and Vincent Van Patten, Jr. (September 3, 1995) Russell was previously engaged to film producer Mark Burg. After a brief retirement from acting, Russell appeared in a small role in Saw III playing John Kramer's ex-wife, Jill Tuck. She went on to star in the sequels, Saw IV, Saw V, Saw VI, and Saw 3D. She played a role in the 2010 film Chain Letter, the SyFy film Mandrake, and My Trip Back to the Dark Side. Description above from the Wikipedia article Betsy Russell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.