Background

Theresa Saldana was born on August 20, 1954, in New York City, New York, United States. When she was five days old, she was adopted by Divina Saldana and Tony Saldana, a family of Puerto Rican and Italian-American heritage.

Education

When Theresa was a child, she attended dance classes. After a serious shoulder injury, she began attending acting classes.

Career

In 1977, Theresa performed in an Off Broadway musical "The New York City Street Show". The following year, in 1978, she made her first film appearance in "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". In 1980, Saldana acted as Jake LaMotta's sister-in-law in "Raging Bull" and as Sophia Loren's sister Maria in the made-for-TV "Sophia Loren: Her Own Story". That same year, Theresa showed up in a traditional woman-in-peril role in "Defiance" film.

In 1982, Saldana was attacked and nearly killed by a crazed fan Arthur Richard Jackson, who had stalked her. She recovered after four hours of surgery and a four-month hospital stay at the Motion Picture Hospital. Saldana relived the incident in the made-for-TV movie "Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story" and again in an episode of "Hunter" crime drama. Also, after that incident and a long and traumatic recuperation period, she organized "Victims for Victims", a support group for other people, who survived near-fatal attacks from "devoted admirers".

During the 1980's, Saldana had a thriving career, playing guest parts in TV-series, before landing her first major role as Rachel Scali, the wife of the title character in "The Commish" TV-series. Later, she hosted the Lifetime Cable Network "reality" series "Confessions of Crime". Moreover, Theresa appeared in other TV-series, including "Nurse" (1981), "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1983) and many others.

The other movies, where Theresa had a role, include "The Evil That Men Do" (1984), "The Night Before" (1988), "Double Revenge" (1988), "Of Men and Angels" (1989), "Angel Town" (1990), "Carlo's Wake" (1999), "Gang Warz" (2004) and "Illusion Infinity" (2004). It was in 2004, that Saldana retired from acting.

Achievements

• Theresa Saldana was a prominent American actress. She gained prominence for her role as Rachel Scali in the 1990's TV-series "The Commish", for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994. Her other major film roles include a role of Lenore La Motta in the movie "Raging Bull" (1980) and a role of a Beatles fan in the movie "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (1978).
  
  Also, Saldana was known as an author of "Beyond Survival" book.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Beyond Survival

    (This true story of an up-and-coming actress, who became t...)

    1986

• movie

  • The Night Before

    (In this unusual teen comedy, the most popular girl in sch...)

    1988
  • Angel Town

    (A French kickboxer (Olivier Gruner) protects a widow (The...)

    1990
  • Raging Bull

    (The story of a middleweight boxer as he rises through ran...)

    1980
  • The Evil That Men Do

    (A professional killer comes out of retirement to investig...)

    1984
  • Defiance

    (An out-of-work seaman temporarily moves into a tenement o...)

    1980
  • I Wanna Hold Your Hand

    (The year is 1964. The Beatles are about to arrive in the ...)

    1978
  • Gang Warz 2004
  • Sophia Loren: Her Own Story 1980

• television series

  • The Commish 1991

Politics

Theresa took part in lobbying for the 1990 anti-stalking law and the 1994 Driver's Privacy Protection Act, both of which came into being partly as a consequence of the attack on her on March 15, 1982, by Arthur Richard Jackson.

Connections

Fred Feliciano was Theresa's first husband. In 1989, she married Phil Peters, an actor. Moreover, Saldana was a mother of one child, named Tianna.

child:

Tianna Saldana

Stepmother:

Divina Saldana

stepfather:

Tony Saldana

First husband:

Fred Feliciano

Second husband:

Phil Peters

References

• Obsessed: The Stalking of Theresa Saldana An account of Arthur Jackson's murderous obsession with Theresa Saldana describes how he stalked and attacked the young actress, who had become the focus of his schizophrenic delusions.
  1994