Philippa Scott is an American actress who has appeared in film and television since the 1950s.
Personal life
Scott was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of actress Laura Straub and screenwriter Allan Scott; an uncle was the blacklisted screenwriter Adrian Scott. Scott married Lee Rich, a founding partner of Lorimar Productions, in 1964. They had two children together before they divorced in 1983, though they maintained a friendship until his death in 2012. In the 1970s, along with steady work acting in television productions, Scott was a student at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she pursued a degree in landscape architecture. By the 1990s, Scott had become active in human rights work, such as supporting the Commission of Experts formed under United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 in its research of the "widespread violations of international humanitarian law" committed during the Bosnian genocide.
Acting career
Scott attended Radcliffe and UCLA before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England. Shortly after her return to the United States, she won a Theatre World Award for her 1956 Broadway debut in Child of Fortune. Scott then quickly signed a contract with Warner Bros. and made her movie debut that same year with a role in John Ford's epic The Searchers. Scott was cast in the 1958 film As Young as We Are in the role of a new high school teacher who falls in love with the character Hank Moore, played by Robert Harland, who turns out to be a student. She appeared as Pegeen in the 1958 Warner Brothers film, Auntie Mame. She appeared as Abigail in the 1959 episode of Maverick titled "Easy Mark". In the 1959–1960 CBS Television seriesMr. Lucky, starring John Vivyan and Ross Martin, she had a recurring role as Maggie Shank-Rutherford. Around this time, she also appeared on the ABC-TV western series, The Alaskans. Scott guest starred on such series as The DuPont Show with June Allyson, The Twilight Zone, Thriller, F Troop, Have Gun - Will Travel, Redigo, The Tall Man, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Rat Patrol, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and Gunsmoke. In 1962–1963, she appeared in the first season of NBC's The Virginian in the recurring role of "Molly Wood", publisher, editor, and reporter of The Medicine Bow Banner. She made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr. In 1963, she played defendant Gwynn Elston in "The Case of the Bigamous Spouse"; in 1966 she played defendant Ethel Andrews in "The Case of the Fanciful Frail". In 1964, she guest starred with Eddie Albert and Claude Rains in the episode "A Time to Be Silent" of The Reporter. She guest starred in "The Garden House", an episode of ABC's The Fugitive, starring David Janssen. Her last notable film roles were the wife of Dick Van Dyke's character in the comedy Cold Turkey, and as Dabney Coleman's wife in the TV movie Bad Ronald, although she sporadically played minor characters throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including a 1971 guest spot in the episode "Didn't You Used to Be... Wait... Don't Tell Me" of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She played an actress stranded in Virginia due to money problems in a 1973 episode of The Waltons. In 1973 she played a murder victim in Columbo: Requiem for a Falling Star. Her last regular TV role was as nursery school teacher Maggie Hearn in the 15 episode 1976 NBC police dramaJigsaw John starring Jack Warden. She returned to the big screen in 2011's Footprints, for which she was nominated for the Stockholm Krystal Award for Best Supporting Actress at the Method Fest Independent Film Festival.
Off-screen work in film
Scott produced, wrote the screenplay for, and directed King Leopold's Ghost, a film based on the book of the same name by Adam Hochschild.
