"I went to find myself and save myself by being an agent." -- Victoria Principal
Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950Interviews of Principal at UltimateDallas from 2003 and 2007 (retrieved 2007-07-07) list 1950, as does However, 1946 may be found listed in older Almanacs and many other sources, including Celebrity Index. 1945 has also been given in many sources, including YahooTV.) is an American actress, best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987.
"As long as my body is in shape, my mind is working at its full capacity.""As the years go by, I've added a few pounds on, and I like it. I like it that I look a little softer.""Being an agent gave me a great sense of satisfaction.""Don't strive to be perfect. Strive for excellence.""I arrived in California with no job, no car, and no money, but, like millions of other girls, a dream.""I became so consumed with trying to live up to what the public expected that I lost myself. I don't know of anyone else who can say this.""I believe that how you feel is very important to how you look - that healthy equals beautiful.""I enjoy speaking to other women about turning 50, and how we can enjoy it, and how we can explore it.""I got even with all the bad management I had by being a good manager.""I grew up thinking that whatever I wanted to do, I could do.""I try to treat people the way I would like to be treated, but I can't worry about what everyone's going to think.""I was very lucky. My parents raised me in such a way that it never occurred to me that I wasn't equal.""I went to a woman for advice about how to be in business, but I learned a great deal from men.""I'm about to become a member of the Chemists Society of America. I'm very proud of that.""I'm generally competing with the ideal I have set for myself, and I've found that served me very well.""If wanted to play a sport, I played a sport. If I wanted to do things that many girls born in 1950 didn't do, I did it.""Ignorance is not bliss, but in my case, that was.""It is so easy to forget that this is good that we're alive. We should be enjoying this gift of being alive.""It used to be you wanted to marry up.""No one can make me work harder than I do, so I'm generally not interested in who I am competing with.""Oprah is so bright, and her intelligence is so piercing that I don't think anyone who spends a few minutes with her isn't struck by that.""Success doesn't mean that you are healthy, success doesn't mean that you're happy, success doesn't mean that you're rested. Success really doesn't mean that you look good, or feel good, or are good.""There are two things in life that I really wanted to do: be an actress, and to be in skin care, and I've gotten to do both of them.""There came a moment in my life when I realized that I had stepped into another part of my life. I used to walk into a room full of people and think, do they like me? And one day I walk in and I thought, do I like them?""Unless we keep this planet healthy, everything else is for naught.""Victory Over Violence is an organization that was created to help fund shelters for women and children.""When I became a mature woman, I put both feet firmly on the side of maturity.""When I don't plumb the depths or the opportunities of each day, I don't have joy.""When I started Victoria Principal Products, there were 22 full-time employees - they were all women.""When women work together, it's a bond unlike any other.""You can't be responsible for the way people respond to you. You're only responsible for yourself."
Victoria Principal was born in Fukuoka, Japan, the eldest daughter of a United States Air Force sergeant.
Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Italy; her mother was born in Georgia and was of English descent. Since her father was a career sergeant in the Air Force, they moved often and she grew up in London, Puerto Rico, Florida, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places. She attended 17 different schools, including studying at the Royal Academy of Ballet while her family was stationed in England.
Principal acted in her first commercial when five, and enjoyed a successful career in commercials. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, intending to study medicine. Months before completing her first year of studies, she was seriously injured in a car crash while driving home from the library. The other driver was convicted of drunk driving and served jail time. Principal spent months in recovery and was faced with the prospect of having to take her first year of studies over again. After a period of serious introspection, she drastically changed her life by moving to New York to pursue her acting career, and shortly thereafter to Europe. While living in London, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and then in 1971, she moved to Los Angeles.
Personal life
Principal met Christopher Skinner in 1978 when he played a bit role on Dallas. Soon after, they married, but then divorced in 1980. She dated teen idol Andy Gibb after meeting him on The John Davidson Show in 1981. The two hit it off immediately, and she sang a duet with Gibb. A year later, she gave him an ultimatum, "Choose me, or choose drugs"; Principal split with Gibb in March 1982.
Victoria remarried in 1985 and divorced after 21 years in 2006.
Subsequently, Principal moved to Malibu. She maintains other homes in Big Sur, California, and Switzerland.
In 2006, Principal formed a charitble organization to help subsidize the environmental movement, which she had been a part of since 1978.
In 2007, it was reported that she was training for her booked flight on Richard Branson's commercial space flight venture. Principal and Branson flew to New Mexico and held a joint world-wide press conference on the space center to be built in New Mexico.
In 2008, Principal quietly stepped up to aid those in need after the California wildfires.
On June 2, 2010, Principal donated $200,000 to the cleanup effort in the Gulf Coast region. Principal's donation brought together two huge environmental non-profits, Oceana and NRDC, to work together on the cleanup.
Principal appeared with other celebrities June 21, 2010 on a CNN Larry King sponsored Telethon to support the Gulf Coast Region. Victoria was on a panel with Larry and also answered phones and spoke to donors for the entire two hours. The telethon raised over $1.8 Million in just two hours.
Principal was honored at the opening of Legacy Park in Malibu on October 2nd. Principal was a founding member of the park in 2004, and was honored at the opening for helping get the 15 acre park off of Pacific Coast Highway off the ground.
In 1970, Principal moved to Hollywood. She had no money, no car, no agent, and no prior television or movie making experiences beside the commercials she had made in her teenage years. She supported herself by teaching backgammon, which she had learned while living in London, that was becoming a popular game played by many in Hollywood. Nine months later Principal had a car, an agent, still little money but auditioned and won her first film role, as Marie Elena, a Mexican mistress in Paul Newman's The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), for which she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. Because of the response to Principal's footage in the film, the role was enlarged on a daily basis by the writer, John Milius. Producers, agents, and other interested parties began showing up at the remote location in Benson, Arizona. For the most part they were showing up to sign Principal to her next film. During this period of time Warren Cowan flew in, introduced himself to Principal, and offered to represent her free of charge for the next year. Principal has been a client of Rogers & Cowan ever since. She flew to Arizona a complete unknown; when she returned to Los Angeles three months later, the commercial flight she was on was greeted by throngs of paparazzi. Subsequently, she appeared in The Naked Ape (1973) with Johnny Crawford and appeared nude in Playboy magazine to promote the film. The film's failure disappointed her.
In 1974, she was cast in the disaster film Earthquake. Although the role had been narrowed down to three actresses, Principal won the role when she showed up for the third audition having cut off her waist-length brown hair, dyed it black, and put it into an afro. The producer was stunned and impressed by Principal's risky transformation in order to look more closely like the Italian character Rosa. Principal won the part in that moment. She continued to act in lesser-known films such as I Will, I Will... for Now and Vigilante Force with Kris Kristofferson. She was given a three-picture deal with Brute Productions. However, Principal decided to stop acting and became an agent, which was her profession from 1975 to late 1977.
In 1977, Aaron Spelling offered her a role in the pilot of his television series Fantasy Island, which she accepted. Soon after, in 1978, she landed her most famous role, playing Pamela Barnes Ewing in the evening soap opera television series Dallas. In 1983, she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Best Actress in a Television Series for her role on Dallas.
After nine years, Principal left Dallas in 1987. She went on to star in various made-for-television movies such as Mistress, Blind Witness, Naked Lie, Sparks: The Price of Passion, and Don't Touch My Daughter, a few of which she co-produced. In 1994, she appeared in an episode of the hit sitcom Home Improvement.
Principal returned to primetime soap operas in 2000, when she appeared in another Aaron Spelling production, the short-lived NBC television series Titans.
Entrepreneur
When Principal signed her Dallas contract, she omitted the clause that would have given the network the right to consent and profit from her outside endeavors. She explained, "As a result that’s why, you can only notice in hindsight, I was the only person in the cast who did commercials, who was doing movies of the week, who wrote books and these all belong to me. I retained the control and ownership of my image. No one owns me."
When she left the show in 1987, she began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions, producing mostly movies for television. In the mid-1980s, she became interested in natural beauty therapies and in 1989 she created a self-named line of skin care products, Principal Secret, which has amassed over $1 Billion in sales to date. In 1995, she was named "Entertainment Business Woman of the Year" by the National Association of Women Business Owners and received an honorary degree from Drexel University's Business School. In 2003, Principal became a member of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists.
In addition, she became a best-selling author, writing three books about beauty, skin care, and health: The Body Principal (1983), The Beauty Principal (1984), and The Diet Principal (1987). She published a fourth book, Living Principal, in 2001.
