D’Angelo began work in the theatre, appearing on Broadway in 1976 in Rockabye Hamlet (also known as Kronborg: 1582) a musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Although the production was a failure, running less than a month, D’Angelo’s performance as Ophelia attracted positive attention.
After gaining minor roles in movies including Annie Hall, D’Angelo had a string of hit movies in the late 1970s, appearing in Every Which Way But Loose, Hair and Coal Miner’s Daughter. Her biggest break came with Chevy Chase in the 1983 National Lampoon’s Vacation. Her role as Ellen Griswold was reprised in three Vacation sequels and a short film from 1985 through 2010. In 1992, she had a guest appearance in the third season of The Simpsons as Lurleen Lumpkin, a beautiful, Southern country singer and waitress, in “Colonel Homer”, and sixteen years later in 2008, she appeared in the nineteenth season – as the same character – in the episode “Papa Don’t Leech”.
She has a recurring role on… read more
D’Angelo began work in the theatre, appearing on Broadway in 1976 in Rockabye Hamlet (also known as Kronborg: 1582) a musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Although the production was a failure, running less than a month, D’Angelo’s performance as Ophelia attracted positive attention.
After gaining minor roles in movies including Annie Hall, D’Angelo had a string of hit movies in the late 1970s, appearing in Every Which Way But Loose, Hair and Coal Miner’s Daughter. Her biggest break came with Chevy Chase in the 1983 National Lampoon’s Vacation. Her role as Ellen Griswold was reprised in three Vacation sequels and a short film from 1985 through 2010. In 1992, she had a guest appearance in the third season of The Simpsons as Lurleen Lumpkin, a beautiful, Southern country singer and waitress, in “Colonel Homer”, and sixteen years later in 2008, she appeared in the nineteenth season – as the same character – in the episode “Papa Don’t Leech”.
She has a recurring role on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as defense attorney Rebecca Balthus. In 2006, she starred in the independent cult hit Gamers: The Movie. She can now be seen on the hit HBO series Entourage, playing the role of agent Barbara “Babs” Miller.
In 2008, D’Angelo had a role in the film Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay as Sally. She also played the housemother in the film The House Bunny and currently wrapped a Tony Kaye film Black Water Transit and David O Russell film Nailed playing Jessica Biel’s mother. —wikipedia
