Teri’s difficult years

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 11

Teri’s difficult years

The actress, Teri Copley, did not always have it made. In fact, the childhood and teenage years were very difficult ones for this blonde star of the Friday night comedy series, “We Got It Made.”

Her parents divorced when Teri Copley was only three years old and after that she did not see much of her father. Her mother worked in banks and tried to support the family of four — two older brothers and a younger sister. “We were on food stamps and the welfare people dropped off a box of food on Thanksgiving,” she said. “Friday nights was the big meal of the week — a hamburger at McDonalds.” There were frequent changes of address and stepfathers to contend with. Teri Copley also suffered from a lack of self-confid-ence.

“I was very, very skinny then and felt unattractive — no boyfriends — but I knew I wasn’t ugly,” she said. “I’d been holding jobs since I was 13 to help bring in money so I knew I wasn’t useless.”

Then, she said, her body “got it together” and she

began to think in terms of an acting career. After high school she took drama classes at junior college until she had to drop out to work full-time. Teri Copley’s mother always thought her daughter could be an actress. “She is quite ingenious when she sets her mind to something,” said Miss Copley. One day her mother read about a producer who was casting for a movie, and simply picked up the telephone and called him. Pretending to be an old friend, she managed to speak to him and arranged for her daughter to see him.

The interview went well but Teri Copley was turned down for the part because she looked too young. In the hallway of the Hollywood office building, while waitinig for an elevator, she was stopped by an agent who asked if she was an actress. Although she had no credits, the agent, impressed with her charm and good looks, signed her within a week.

Since she began her career with a co-starring role in the television mini series, “The Star Maker,”

playing the role of Angel Baker opposite Rock Hudson, Teri Copley has been compared with numerous blondes.

The breathless quality of Marilyn Monroe is evident as well as the innocence and winsome quality of a Goldie Hawn, says TVNZ. “But I’m very much my own person,” she said. Teri Copley is married to

Christopher Mayer (one of the temporary leads in “The Dukes of Hazzard” while the stars were in a contract dispute) and has a daughter, Ashley.

They have a home on the flatlands of suburban- San Fernando Valley and with a maid of their own and a swimming pool out the back it would seem these days Teri Copley really has “got it made.”