Ina Balin
1937 - 1990Ina Balin (November 12, 1937 – June 20, 1990) was an American actress on Broadway and in film.
Born as Ina Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, she first appeared on television on The Perry Como Show. She also did summer stock, which led to roles on Broadway, and in 1959, she won the "Theatre World Award" for her performance in the Broadway comedy, A Majority of One, starring Gertrude Berg and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. That same year, she landed her first film role in The Black Orchid, starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn.
A year later, Balin was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress — Motion Picture for her performance opposite Paul Newman in From the Terrace. She also appeared in The Young Doctors.
In 1961, she appeared as Pilar Graile in The Comancheros with John Wayne and Stuart Whitman. Co-starring with Jerry Lewis in the 1964 hit comedy The Patsy, Balin also had a secondary, but important part in 1965's The Greatest Story Ever Told. She co-starred with Elvis Presley in his 1969 film Charro!
Balin guest-starred on dozens of television shows, including Bonanza, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Battlestar Galactica, Get Smart, Ironside, Quincy, M.E. and Magnum, P.I. She appeared with Joseph Cotten, Fernando Lamas and Dean Jagger in the 1969 made-for-television movie The Lonely Profession.
In 1970, Balin toured Vietnam with the USO on the first of many trips to the war-torn region. She co-starred in the 1971 film The Projectionist, which marked the screen debut of Rodney Dangerfield. In 1975, she aided in the evacuation of orphans during the fall of Saigon; eventually, she adopted three of these orphaned children. In 1980, she played herself in a made-for-television movie based on these experiences, The Children of An Lac.
While working on The Children of An Lac, she became acquainted with Christy Marx, who at the time worked as a producer's liaison for various television programs. According to Marx, she used Balin's story as a basis for a character in the animated show Jem when she later became a writer. The character of Ba Nee is based on Balin's adopted daughter, Ba-Nhi. Ba Nee's obsession with and struggle to find her birth father are the focus of several episodes of Jem. She co-starred in the comedy The Comeback Trail with the lead actor and director from The Projectionist.
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The Immigrants
Alan J. Levi
Stephen Macht, Sharon Gless
The rags-to-riches saga of a young Italian immigrant who battles his way out of the San Francisco earthquake to become a shipping magnate, rise to the top of Nob Hill's society through a loveless marriage to the daughter of the city's wealthiest family, and find happiness with an Asian mistress despite the collapse of his fortune during the Wall Street crash.
The Immigrants
The Lonely Profession
Douglas Heyes
Harry Guardino, Dean Jagger
Private investigator Leo Gordon is hired to trail Karen Mendaros, the mistress of a reclusive billionaire. When they meet, Gordon and Mendaros hit it off and check in at a motel. Gordon wakes up the next morning and discovers that Mendaros had been murdered during the night. Gordon opens his own investigation of Mendaros' past in an attempt to determine who killed Mendaros and why he's been set up as the fall guy.
The Lonely Profession
The Children of An Lac
John Llewellyn Moxey
Shirley Jones, Ina Balin
Based on the true story of film actress Ina Balin and her efforts with American Red Cross volunteer Betty Tisdale, as well as a compassionate Vietnamese woman running a Saigon orphanage, to rescue as many children as possible and fly them out of the country before South Vietnam's fall in the spring of 1975 through the An Lac baby-lift.
The Children of An Lac
The Comancheros
John Wayne, Michael Curtiz
John Wayne, Stuart Whitman
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves known as Comancheros.
The Comancheros
From the Terrace
Mark Robson
Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward
Alfred Eaton, an ambitious young executive, climbs to the top of New York's financial world as his marriage crumbles. At the brink of attaining his career goals, he is forced to choose between business success, married to the beautiful, but unfaithful Mary and starting over with his true love, the much younger Natalie.
From the Terrace
The Greatest Story Ever Told
George Stevens
Max von Sydow, Michael Anderson Jr.
From his birth in Bethlehem to his death and eventual resurrection, the life of Jesus Christ is given the all-star treatment in this epic retelling. Major aspects of Christ's life are touched upon, including the execution of all the newborn males in Egypt by King Herod; Christ's baptism by John the Baptist; and the betrayal by Judas after the Last Supper that eventually leads to Christ's crucifixion and miraculous return.
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Patsy
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis, Ina Balin
When a star comedian dies, his comedy team decides to train a 'nobody' to play the Star in a big TV show (a Patsy). But the man chosen, bellboy Stanley Belt (Lewis), can't do anything right. The TV show is getting closer, and Stanley is getting worse.
The Patsy
