| Gina Gillespie | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gina Gillespie September 20, 1951 San Gabriel, California |
| Occupation | Attorney |
| Years active | 1958 - 1966 |
Gina Gillespie (born September 20, 1951) is a former American actress who had a brief but extensive career in television and film during her childhood and youth.
Contents |
Her parents, Herbert Gillespie and Rean Tibeau, a former vaudeville dancing couple originally from Saskatchewan, immigrated from Montreal, Canada to Alhambra, California during October 1942. Several years later, they moved to San Gabriel, where Gina was born. Gina has three older sisters, two of whom were also child actors, and two younger brothers. When her sister Darlene Gillespie was hired as a Mouseketeer in 1955, the family relocated to Burbank, where Gina Gillespie grew up attending Roman Catholic schools.
Gina Gillespie first appeared on television in 1956, on an episode of The Mickey Mouse Club, where she and her sisters, Patricia, Darlene, and Larrian, sang as "Talent Roundup Winners". Her first acting role was on an episode of the CBS anthology series General Electric Theater, hosted by Ronald Reagan in March 1958. That same year she would appear on Suspicion, Rescue 8, two episodes of The Loretta Young Show, and make her film debut in Andy Hardy Comes Home.
Gillespie acted in two films, What Ever happened to Baby Jane and Face of a Fugitive, and a television show during early 1959, before she landed a role as a series regular on NBC's Law of the Plainsman with co-stars Michael Ansara and Robert Harland in 1959-1960 season. She played the character of "Terry 'Tess' Wilkins", an orphan who is saved from being killed by outlaws by Apache U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart, Ansara's character on the series.
For the next two years Gillespie would appear on episodes of eleven different series, before making her final film appearance, in the 1962 production of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. Gillespie played the part of Joan Crawford's character "Blanche" as a young girl.
Throughout the mid-sixties, Gina Gillespie would continue to be in demand as a featured player or guest star on television. She performed on Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Laramie, and The Fugitive among others, before landing a regular role as younger daughter "Mimi" in the sitcom Karen, during the 1964-65 television season. Her last known acting role was in a 1966 episode of NBC's Laredo.
Like many child stars, Gillespie's acting career ended when she reached her early teens. She graduated from Providence High School in Burbank, attended university, then worked as a legal secretary for thirteen years. She was admitted to the California Bar Association in 1988, opened her own law firm under her married name, and has since practised as a private attorney with specialty in estate planning and elder care issues.