Colleen Camp

Colleen Camp (birthname: Colleen Celeste Camp) is a veteran actor and producer who has been
in show business since 1965 when she was a child performer. Camp landed several supporting roles in the 1970s in a wide range of independent and studio movies, ranging from The Last Porno Flick (1974) and The Swinging Cheerleaders (1974) to the Funny Girl sequel, Funny Lady (1975) and Michael Richie’s acclaimed comedy, Smile (1975), culminating with Camp playing one of the Playmate Bunnies in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

Camp appeared in nearly twenty features in the 1980s, occasionally working with major filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich (They All Laughed in 1981 and Illegally Yours in 1988), Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl in 1983, The City Girl and Joy of Sex in 1984), Nicolas Roeg (Track 29 in 1988), and Larry Cohen (Wicked Stepmother, starring Bette Davis in her final movie role, in 1989).

Camp also appeared as Kathleen Kirkland in the popular Police Academy comedy series, including Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985) and Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), as well as a role in another sequel, Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983), starring Jackie Gleason and Paul Williams.

Colleen Camp continued her busy work as a supporting actor in the 1990s, playing in over twenty movies, including parts in movies by top-lining Hollywood director Herbert Ross (My Blue Heaven in 1990), Penelope Spheeris (Wayne’s World in 1992), Phillip Noyce (Sliver in 1993), John McTiernan (Last Action Hero in 1993, Die Hard with a Vengeance in 1995), Martha Coolidge (Three Wishes in 1995), Donald Petrie (The Associate in 1996), Ang Lee (The Ice Storm in 1997), Jan de Bont (Speed 2: Cruise Control in 1997), and Alexander Payne (Election in 1999).

Camp built her reputation as a reliable and wide-ranging character actor in the 2000s with roles with such moviemakers as Amy Heckerling (Loser in 2000), Tony Goldwyn (Someone Like You… in 2001), Éva Gárdos (An American Rhapsody in 2001, which Camp also produced), Jerry Zucker (Rat Race in 2001), Luis Mandoki (Trapped in 2002), Paul Weitz (In Good Company in 2004 and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant in 2009), Rob Reiner (Rumor Has It… in 2005), Martha Coolidge (Material Girls in 2006), Ryan Murphy (Running with Scissors in 2006), George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl in 2006), and Henry Bean (Noise in 2007).

Camp’s remarkably durable track record as a Hollywood character actor in her fifth decade with a mix of directors she had with before and newer helmers, including Penelope Spheeris (Balls to the Wall in 2011), Roman Coppola (A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III in 2012), Gia Coppola (Palo Alto in 2013), David O. Russell (American Hustle in 2013 and Joy in 2015), Peter Bogdanovich (She’s Funny That Way in 2014, on which Camp was an associate producer), El Roth (Knock Knock, on which Camp was also a producer, in 2014), Guillermo Amoedo (The Stranger, on which Camp was a producer-only with Roth, in 2014), and The House with a Clock in Its Walls in 2018), Sophia Takal (Always Shine in 2016), James Toback (An Imperfect Murder in 2017), Phil Allocco (The Truth About Lies, on which Camp also was one of the producers, in 2017), and Phillip Noyce (with whom Camp was a producer-only on Above Suspicion in 2019).

Colleen Camp showed no signs of slowing down as an actor and a producer in her sixth decade. She collaborated with filmmakers Eric Bress (as executive producer only on Ghosts of War in 2020), Peter Berg (Spenser Confidential in 2020), Gia Coppola (Mainstream in 2020), Nick Sarkisov (as executive producer only on Embattled in 2020), Justine Bateman (Violet in 2021), Chris Sivertson (Monstrous, as executive producer, in 2022), Rosalind Ross (Father Stu in 2022, on which Camp was also an executive producer), David O. Russell (Amsterdam in 2022), Patrick Read Johnson (5-25-77 in 2022), Augustus Meleo Bernstein (At the Gates, for which Camp was an executive producer, in 2022).

She also worked with Jacquelyn Frolich (Wayward in 2023, for which Camp acted and was an executive producer), Haroula Ross (with whom Camp had one of her few starring roles in All Happy Families in 2023), Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood (Wild Eyed and Wicked, marking another starring role for Camp, in 2023), Jack Huston (with whom Camp was a lead producer on Day of the Fight in 2023), Tony Kaye (The Trainer, date to be announced), Samuel Gonzalez Jr. (Stiletto, with Camp starring, date to be announced), and Jessica Chandler (Lake Mead, date to be announced).