Film & TV

June 1, 2010

Stage to screen

Lynn Shelton, ’87, parlayed a UW degree in drama into a 10-year career on the stages of New York. But she found her true calling when she opted to pursue a career behind a camera.


March 1, 2010

Visual flair

Two reasons why the Emmy Award-winning TV series 'Mad Men' is so highly acclaimed are its visual style and historical authenticity. Assistant costume designer Allison Leach has had a big hand in both.


March 1, 2009

Haunted hallways

When Kevin Rupprecht, '06, accepted the job of principal at Forks High School, he didn't realize he was signing on to be a minor celebrity as well.


March 1, 2008

One popular geek

Call it “Revenge of the Nerd.” Rainn Wilson was, by his own admission, a hopeless misfit in high school. But when he made a recent appearance at a Kane Hall event, the adoring undergrads had to be turned away by the hundreds.


December 1, 2007

Comedy mind

For comedian and 1996 alumnus Drake Witham, the road to success has been a long, bumpy and filled with detours.


December 1, 2006

The black TV book

Kathleen Fearn-Banks once worked in TV, and now has written the dictionary on an important part of its history.


Changing the game

Ward Serrill found his passion in the form of a documentary called "The Heart of the Game," a film that chronicles seven years with the Roosevelt High School girls’ basketball team and its unconventional coach. Film Critic Roger Ebert called it “a triumph.”


March 1, 2005

Scene change

Can graduates of the UW’s prestigious acting program find fulfillment away from the footlights? Four PATP alumni share their stories.


June 1, 2004

Role of a lifetime

This spring, Jim Caviezel hit the big time playing Jesus Christ in Mel Gibson’s controversial movie The Passion of the Christ.


Idol in the making

Matt Rogers, ’01, first tasted the limelight when he played on the Husky football team that won the 2001 Rose Bowl. This year, he reveled in more adulation as a finalist on the TV show American Idol.


March 1, 2003

Peg Phillips, 1918-2002

Peg Phillips, a retired accountant who took acting classes at the University of Washington at age 65 and went on to have a career that lasted nearly two decades, died Nov. 8. She was 84.


June 1, 2002

Star stuntwoman

Jumping out of helicopters, driving speeding cars and fighting bad guys is all in a day’s work for Marla Casey, ’86.


March 1, 2002

Athlete and actor

Herman Brix’s storybook account of growing up in the lumber camps of Washington to become an Olympic athlete and major movie star is the subject of Mike Chapman’s 2001 book "Please Don’t Call Me Tarzan."


September 1, 1999

Starring role

For the past three springs, Pamela Reed has come to campus to work with undergraduates and students in the Professional Actor Training Program


Against all odds

After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, Tom Lantos got a fresh start at the UW. Now he is serving in Congress, and his story is part of an Oscar-winning film.


December 1, 1998

Our ‘Black Sheep’

There aren't many UW alumni who win the Medal of Honor, write a best-selling book and have Robert Conrad portray them in a TV series. In fact, there is only one.


September 1, 1997

Patrick Duffy, ’71, spent more time on stage than in class

No entertainer can escape dying on stage every now and then. But Patrick Duffy, '71, is one of the few actors who has come back from the dead.


September 1, 1995

Actor finds his voice

Now, he is a star on one of the highest rated television shows in the land. But not that long ago, Richard Karn was on the brink of being expelled.


December 1, 1994

Hollywood expert

Osborne is a longtime columnist for the Hollywood Reporter, host of a movie classic series on the Turner Channel, and author of eight books chronicling the Academy Awards.


September 1, 1992

Fame came late

Peg Phillips plays the endearing shopkeeper, Ruth Anne, on the hit TV show Northern Exposure.