Melody Anderson (born December 3, 1955) is a Canadian social worker
and public speaker specializing in the impact of addiction on
families. She is a retired actress, whose most high-profile role was
playing Dale Arden in the 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon. She later
starred in the 1986 film Firewalker, with Chuck Norris. While singing,
she also trained as an actress, leading to roles in films and
television during the late 1970s and 1980s.After high school, Anderson
completed a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Carleton University
in Ottawa, Ontario. Anderson served a brief stint as an on-air
reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before travelling
to Southeast Asia and Australia where she worked as one of the first
non-Australian female reporters working for a Sydney
newspaper.Returning to North America, Anderson's first national
exposure was as a guest star in the 1977 series Logan's Run and as a
"Sweathog" in a 1977 episode of Welcome Back, Kotter. She made
numerous guest appearances on television, including Archie Bunker's
Place, Battlestar Galactica, Dallas, T. J. Hooker, CHiPs, the pilot
episode of The A-Team and The Fall Guy. She had recurring roles on St.
Elsewhere and Jake and the Fatman. She was the female lead of the NBC
1983 series Manimal. She was a guest star in the Murder, She Wrote
episode "Prediction: Murder" in 1989.Anderson played the female lead
Dale Arden in Flash Gordon (1980) and Janet Gillis in Dead and Buried
(1981). In 1983, she played the title role in a made-for-television
film called Policewoman Centerfold, in which her character, a divorced
police officer, is fired after posing nude for a men's magazine (based
loosely on the true story of Springfield, Ohio patrolwoman Barbara
Schantz, who was subsequently fired from her job after posing nude in
Playboy magazine in the early 1980s).
and public speaker specializing in the impact of addiction on
families. She is a retired actress, whose most high-profile role was
playing Dale Arden in the 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon. She later
starred in the 1986 film Firewalker, with Chuck Norris. While singing,
she also trained as an actress, leading to roles in films and
television during the late 1970s and 1980s.After high school, Anderson
completed a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Carleton University
in Ottawa, Ontario. Anderson served a brief stint as an on-air
reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before travelling
to Southeast Asia and Australia where she worked as one of the first
non-Australian female reporters working for a Sydney
newspaper.Returning to North America, Anderson's first national
exposure was as a guest star in the 1977 series Logan's Run and as a
"Sweathog" in a 1977 episode of Welcome Back, Kotter. She made
numerous guest appearances on television, including Archie Bunker's
Place, Battlestar Galactica, Dallas, T. J. Hooker, CHiPs, the pilot
episode of The A-Team and The Fall Guy. She had recurring roles on St.
Elsewhere and Jake and the Fatman. She was the female lead of the NBC
1983 series Manimal. She was a guest star in the Murder, She Wrote
episode "Prediction: Murder" in 1989.Anderson played the female lead
Dale Arden in Flash Gordon (1980) and Janet Gillis in Dead and Buried
(1981). In 1983, she played the title role in a made-for-television
film called Policewoman Centerfold, in which her character, a divorced
police officer, is fired after posing nude for a men's magazine (based
loosely on the true story of Springfield, Ohio patrolwoman Barbara
Schantz, who was subsequently fired from her job after posing nude in
Playboy magazine in the early 1980s).
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