Talented American actress, Bess Armstrong is one to reckon with as long as Hollywood is concerned. Starting her career as an actress at the traditional Broadway theatre, she has metamorphosed into a film and TV series actress. Of all her credited works, she is most revered for her role as Patty Chase on the American Teen drama television series, My So-Called Life.
Owing to her fine portrayal of Patty and other attainments of her career, she has attracted huge attention to herself and, it is only normal that people are highly interested in knowing certain things about her. Read on to learn more about this talented actress, her early life, family, and much more.
Bess Armstrong Bio
Elizabeth Key Armstrong popularly referred to as Bess Armstrong was born on December 11, 1953, in Baltimore, Maryland. While there is zero information as regards her elementary school education, it’s known that she had her high school education at Bryn Mawr – an all-girls high school in Philadelphia. It was during her time in high school that she fell in love with acting and went on to join the school’s drama club, thereby appearing in several school plays.
Upon completion of her high school education, she attended the prestigious Ivy League private research university – Brown University, where she studied Latin and Theatre. During her 4 years in college, she was known for appearing in several college plays which made her achieve the status of a college star. At the event of her graduation from college, she had already participated in over a hundred stage plays. Following her graduation from college in 1975, she decided to kick-start her acting career professionally with her going on to make her debut in the off-Broadway theatre play, Harmony House. She continued appearing on more plays until 1977 when she made her TV debut on the CBS sitcom On Our Own, with her playing the character of Julia Peters. In 1978, she made her movie debut in the American romantic comedy, Getting Married, in which she played the character of Kristine Lawrence.
Her big break eventually came in 1983 when she was cast to play the character of Eve Evie Tozer in the American adventure-romance movie, High Road to China, which turned out to be a massive hit. This led to a turnaround in her career as she began to bag more prominent roles. She got to feature in several hit movies and TV series in the 80s such as The Four Seasons, Lace, Nothing in Common, and Jaws 3-D. In 1993, she scored her biggest ever role in the TV series, My So-Called Life which pushed her further into the limelight. Since then, she has gone on to feature in more movies and TV series such as Frailer, Boston Legal, House of Lies, Madmen, and Scandal. In recent times, she has become relatively scarce on the big screen which is mostly as a result of her age.
Family – Spouse, Children, and Parents
As of the time of this report, very little is known about the family of Bess Armstrong, this is so because of the actress’ desire to keep her private life far away from the media as much as possible. However, we know that her parents go by the names of Alexander Armstrong (father) and Louise Allen (mother). Her dad was an English teacher in Gilman school while her mom taught at Bryn Mawr. According to her, they were both instrumental to her becoming who she is today as they were known to support her not only academically, but in the pursuit of her dreams of becoming a successful actress.
Speaking about her husband, it might interest you to know that the legendary actress is currently married to popular American movie director, John Fiedler. Although there is no information about how they met each other, which is probably as a result of their quest for privacy, it is no secret that they decided to make their relationship official sometime in 1985 and have remained together ever since. Before John, she was married to Chris Carreras; the marriage lasted from 1983 to 1984.
The Armstrong-Fiedler union has been blessed in many ways, the two have three children together and their names are Lucy Chase Fiedler, Luke Allen Fiedler, and Samuel Chase Fiedler.
