Leslie Graves

Leslie Graves (the original Brenda Clegg) was born on September, 29th 1959 in Albuquerque or Silver City, New Mexico. She started her carrier in entertainment industry in the late '60s and early 70s when she was very young (approximately at age of 10) with small roles in a Broadway play "A Cry of Players" (1968-1969) written by William Gibson and in several TV series: Sesame Street (1969, first 13 episodes), Mary Tyler Moore Show (1972, just the episode titled "Baby Sit-Com"), Here We Go Again (1973). After that, she disappeared for about ten years. Her come back in early '80 was marked by some nude photos (OUI Magazine, a Playboy corporation affiliate, tributes her the honor of the cover and photo shoot by Phillip Dixon in November 1980 and again in May 1981 a photo shoot by five photographers) and small roles in slasher movies: Piranha: the Spawning (1981) and Death Wish II (1982). This helped her to be noticed and finally she apparently found her way to success when CBS in 1982 cast her, at age of 23, for the role of Brenda Clegg in the daytime soap Capitol, for which she is still remembered with admiration. She found in Carolyn Jones (the original Myrna Clegg) a sort of second, supportive mother both on the Capitol set and in her life. When Carolyn died, Leslie was devastated. One day in late Summer, 1984, Leslie passed out on the set of the CBS sudser. Heroin overdose. She recovered but left the show for good.Her last appearance to the public was the nude photo shoot by Jean Rougeron in October 1984 issue of the magazine OUI. And nothing about her was known until the Soap Opera Weekly announced her death in Los Angeles area in August, 23rd 1995 due to an AIDS-related illness. Married to Jerry Schoenkopf, they had two children: a girl (Amanda) and a boy (Jimmy, b. 1994). Show less «