Victoria Wyndham

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Victoria Wyndham
Victoria Wyndham

Victoria Wyndham (born Victoria Camargo in Chicago, Illinois on May 22, 1945) is an American actress of Mexican descent.

She is the daughter of Mexican-born stage and screen actor Ralph Camargo. Her sister is the Broadway actress Felice Camargo. Wyndham's sons are the actor Christian Camargo (né Minnick) and the photographer Darian Minnick.

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[edit] Early career

Wyndham first started her acting career as understudy in the role of Hodel in the Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof. She went on to perform cabaret with Lily Tomlin for two years at Upstairs at the Downstairs.

[edit] Daytime television credits

Wyndham first made a name for herself when she played Charlotte Waring Fletcher Bauer (Tracy Delmar) on the soap opera The Guiding Light from 1967 to 1970. When she left The Guiding Light, she became a hot commodity in casting circles, with many soaps offering contracts to her. She admitted in a TIME magazine interview that she almost did not follow through with a career in soap operas. Wyndham said, "When I first went into soaps, I didn't tell my serious acting friends. I thought they'd laugh. But now I'm proud of my work; some of the best acting, best moments are in this medium." [1]

She was subsequently cast on the soap opera Another World in the role for which she is best known, the character of Rachel Cory. Wyndham succeeded actress Robin Strasser in the role, and portrayed Rachel from 1972 to 1999.

When Wyndham took over the role from Strasser, the character was a bad girl. The head writer at the time, Harding Lemay, was impressed by Wyndham's range and decided to take the character in different directions. Wyndham's character was reformed after being paired with a much-older book publisher, Mackenzie Cory (Douglass Watson).

It made Wyndham very popular with fans, and proved to be very lucrative as well. Although highly regarded, Wyndham did have one peculiar run-in with a fan: author Annie Gilbert, in the book All My Afternoons, noted that Wyndham was mildly assaulted when an enraged fan, fed up with Rachel's scheming ways and thinking Wyndham was her character, attempted to punch her at a Lord & Taylor store in New York City, all the while screaming "I hate you! I hate you!"

In the later years of the program, Wyndham took on the double role of Justine Duvalier, Rachel's new husband Carl's ex-lover. She played the dual role for two years (1995 and 1996) before Justine was killed off. Wyndham was honored with a special episode showcasing her noteworthy performances on Another World in July 1997, and stayed with the show until it was canceled in June 1999.

[edit] Current work

Wyndham and actor Charles Keating, who played Carl, had enjoyed an off-screen friendship; they'd performed Shakespeare off-Broadway, starting in the mid-1990s. After the show's cancellation, they continued to do so.

Wyndham appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on January 2, 2007, as "Rita Colino," a former wife of the dead partner of Brian Dennehy's character.

[edit] In popular culture

In the third season of the sitcom The Facts of Life, Mrs. Garrett and the girls enjoy a dinner at an upscale New York City restaurant. Mrs. Garrett spies a tall, thin woman with permed brown hair, and exclaimed "Girls, there goes Rachel from Another World!" She sent Natalie to the bathroom to follow her and get her autograph. Dejected, Natalie came back a few moments later, telling Mrs. Garrett that it was not Rachel, but the woman she did meet "had more scandals than Another World!"

[edit] Awards

[edit] External links