Heather Langenkamp

Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (born July 17, 1964) is an American actress, director, disc jockey, makeup coordinator, producer, and writer known for her performances in horror films and television sitcoms. Langenkamp has been deemed a scream queen and was inducted into the Fangoria Chainsaw Hall of Fame in 1995.

Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, while working for the Tulsa Tribune at the age of 18, she appeared as an extra in the Francis Ford Coppola productions The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983). While attending Stanford University, she played her first leading role in the little-seen Nickel Mountain (1984). Her breakthrough role was as the resourceful 15-year-old heroine Nancy Thompson in Wes Craven's slasher film A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)—the first film in the franchise of the same name. She reprised her role as Nancy in the third film and appeared as a fictionalized version of herself in the meta film Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994). Langenkamp has worked on two documentary films; executive producing and narrating Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010), which focuses on the making of all of the Nightmare films; and starring in and producing I Am Nancy (2011), which centers on the legacy of Nancy.

Langenkamp has appeared in the films The Butterfly Room (2012), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021). On television, she has appeared in Growing Pains (1988-1990), Just the Ten of Us (1988-1990), Perversions of Science (1997), and the Mike Flanagan Netflix series The Midnight Club (2022). With her second husband David LeRoy Anderson, they run AFX Studio, where she has worked as a special make-up effects coordinator for films such as Dawn of the Dead (2004), Cinderella Man (2005), Evan Almighty (2007), and The Cabin in the Woods (2012). She has also worked as a disc jockey for the Malibu radio station KBUU-LP since the 2010s, going under the pseudonym Sandy Bottoms. She wrote and directed the short film Washed Away (2019).

Early life

Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother, Mary Alice (née Myers), is an artist. Her father, Robert Dobie Langenkamp, is a petroleum attorney. Her father was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy in the Carter Administration, where he was partially responsible for realizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. He worked under the Clinton Administration, where he helped with privatizing Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1. He later was the Director of the National Energy & Environmental Law & Policy Institute of the University of Tulsa College of Law. She later moved to Washington, D.C. after her father's appointment to the Carter administration, where she attended the National Cathedral School for Girls, with classmate and future Stanford University roommate Susan Rice.

Career

1980s

At age eighteen, Langenkamp worked for the Tulsa Tribune where she saw an advertisement looking for extras for Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders in the summer of 1982. Auditions occurred at a nearby elementary school where the casting director took a Polaroid of her; Langenkamp got a call back to appear in a high school scene, in which she had to wear attire based on 1950s fashion.

Coppola was shooting another film in Tulsa the same summer, Rumble Fish, after The Outsiders; Langenkamp's friend got a phone call to appear in a street scene, and her friend's mother felt more comfortable with Langenkamp going with her to the set at night. The casting director allowed her to join and gave dialogue to Langenkamp—in which she did several takes of her saying dialogue to Matt Dillon's character; The Outsiders and Rumble Fish did not include her scenes but helped her get into the Screen Actors Guild. These positive experiences made Langenkamp feel like she should attempt to pursue an acting career in Hollywood.

While studying at Stanford University, she would travel to Los Angeles on the weekends to pursue auditions, where she had her first official Hollywood audition for Drew Denbaum's independent drama film Nickel Mountain (1984). While auditioning, her rented car got hit by a runaway truck on Cahuenga Boulevard. Denbaum and the casting director helped Langenkamp during the ordeal. She bonded with them and got cast in the lead role of Callie Wells. She has expressed regret for doing the nude scene as she feared voicing her discomfort while filming—as she was an up-and-coming actress.

Her next role was Beth, the daughter of Joanne Woodward and Richard Crenna's characters in the CBS television film Passions (1984). The direction towards her character received praise. Langenkamp reflects, "It was a complex part. Richard plays a philandering husband who has a son with his mistress, so my character was acting like a bridge between these two families."

Langenkamp became aware of auditions for a horror film known as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) at the end of 1983. Casting director Annette Benson was familiar to Langenkamp as she had brought her in to read for the lead role in Night of the Comet (1984); the part ultimately went to Catherine Mary Stewart. She auditioned for the highly sought after role of fifteen-year-old heroine Nancy. There were not enough chairs to accommodate the number of actresses auditioning. Her reading impressed both Benson and director Wes Craven enough that she was asked to read with another actress auditioning, Amanda Wyss. Craven stated that he wanted someone very "non-Hollywood" and someone who embodied the "all-American, girl-next-door" for the role and believed that Langenkamp had these qualities. Craven informed her that she got the part in the winter of 1984, although filming didn't begin until June of that year. She beat out more than 200 actresses auditioning for the part. She won the Best Actress Award at the Avoriaz Film Festival for her role as Nancy, and Empire magazine wrote that "Heather Langenkamp [is] an appealing high school lead." She was then established as a scream queen. Later that year, she starred in the music video for ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag".

In 1986, she guest-starred in CBS Schoolbreak Special and ABC Afterschool Specials before being cast in Suburban Beat (1985), a television pilot that did not get picked up, where she played Hope Sherman, the youngest housewife. Craven approached Langenkamp to reprise her role of Nancy in the sequel A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), about the survivors of Freddy Krueger's previous attempts; it opened to box office success in 1987 grossing over $44 million. Later, she had a guest appearance as Tracy in the television series The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and Monica on the soap opera Hotel (both in 1987).

Langenkamp obtained further recognition when she portrayed lead character Marie Lubbock on the ABC television series Just the Ten of Us, a spin-off of the popular ABC situation comedy Growing Pains (on which she guest-starred), from 1988 to 1990. Both shows won Emmy Awards. That year, she and her castmates received nominations for the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor/Actress Ensemble in a Television Comedy, Drama Series or Special. Langenkamp had a cameo role as the first victim of Horace Pinker in Wes Craven's horror film Shocker (1989). In the film, she is on a news report being pulled away on a stretcher.

1990s

Langenkamp portrayed the figure skater Nancy Kerrigan in the NBC television film Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story, released in 1994, which focused on Tonya Harding's husband's attack.

Langenkamp returned to the Elm Street franchise with Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which is a standalone film, and follows the journey Freddy Krueger takes to the real world. She instead starred as a fictionalized version of herself, based on a stalking incident she was subject to that involved a fan angry over the cancellation of her show, Just the Ten of Us. On the film, Langenkamp stated "It's a really interesting concept, and it's one of the only horror movies where the monster's really in the background, at least until the end. But it's all about our mentality about fear." Wes Craven's New Nightmare was released in 1994, and opened to critical praise, being cited as an influential "metahorror" film. Several critics considered it to be one of Langenkamp's best performances. Joe Leydon of Variety stated that she "proves she is still one of cinema’s most resourceful scream queens here." Review website Slasher Studios believed the film was "led by a tour-de-force performance by the amazing Langenkamp." James A. Janisse of Dead Meat said that Langenkamp "is in top form and gives her best performance of the franchise here." For her performance, she won the Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best Actress.

Langenkamp starred in Robert Kurtzman's low-budget superhero film The Demolitionist (1995). In 1997, she portrayed Lou Ann Solomon in one episode of the short-lived science fiction/horror television series Perversions of Science. She later starred in the direct-to-video film Fugitive Mind (1999).

2000s

In 2000, she had a guest role in 18 Wheels of Justice as a waitress. The following year, she and her husband, David LeRoy Anderson, launched the Malibu Gum Factory which sold locally manufactured chewing gum that featured trading cards of local surfers inside each package. Langenkamp played Janet Thompson in an episode of JAG (2002). After this, she took a break from acting to focus on her family. In 2005, she was cast in the Wes Craven horror film Cursed. The film had to be reshot and rewritten, causing her to leave due to scheduling conflicts. Langenkamp portrayed a fictionalized version of herself in the indie mockumentary film The Bet (2007).

2010s

Langenkamp starred in, executive produced, and narrated the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. The following year, she produced a documentary entitled I Am Nancy, which focused on her experience portraying Nancy in the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. She portrayed Dorothy in the horror film The Butterfly Room (2012).

As a partner in her husband's Special FX Make-up company, AFX Studio, she worked on the horror-comedy film The Cabin in the Woods. In 2013, Langenkamp appeared as herself in the documentary Fantasm and had a small role of an alien in the film, Star Trek Into Darkness in which her husband David LeRoy Anderson designed all of the Special FX make-up. In 2014, she made a cameo appearance in the fourth season of the horror anthology series American Horror Story, titled Freak Show, as a Tupperware party lady.

In 2015, Langenkamp was cast in the short film Intruder, portrayed Sharon Monroe in four episodes of the drama series The Bay, and narrated the short horror film Vault of the Macabre II. In 2016, she starred in the horror drama film Home. Langenkamp had a cameo role in the short horror comedy film The Sub (2017) and appeared as herself in the documentary Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary (2017). She has a cameo appearance in the horror sequel film Hellraiser: Judgment. Also that year, she portrayed the adult version of the "final girl" Donna Boone in the Syfy television horror film Truth or Dare, guiding a group of teenagers with their battle with a deadly spirit that left her physically scarred several years prior.

2020s

The Bet was released as a web series with the same title in April 2020. She is confirmed to have the anchoring role in the Mike Flanagan written, directed, and executive produced Netflix series The Midnight Club (2022). Langenkamp voices Dazzle Feather and Mayflower in My Little Pony: A New Generation (2021).

Personal life

Langenkamp's first husband was musician Alan Pasqua, from 1984 until 1987. Her second husband is make-up artist David LeRoy Anderson, whom she met at a wrap party for the 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow. The couple were introduced by casting director Jill Simpson, a good friend of Langenkamp from when they worked together on The Outsiders (1983); Simpson also worked on The Serpent and the Rainbow. Anderson proposed to Langenkamp on the set of Pet Sematary (1989) and they wed that year. Anderson and Langenkamp had two children: Daniel "Atticus" Anderson, who died in 2018 of brain tumor complications at age 26, and daughter Isabelle Anderson.

Filmography

Film

Television

Web series

Music videos

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

Sources

• Hutson, Thommy (2016). Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy: The Making of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Permuted Press. ISBN 978-1-61-868640-4.

External links

• Official website
• Heather Langenkamp at IMDb
• Heather Langenkamp at AllMovie
• Heather Langenkamp at the TCM Movie Database

1. Wes Craven's New Nightmare
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street
3. List of A Nightmare on Elm Street characters
4. The Midnight Club
5. Hellraiser: Judgment
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
7. Scream queen
8. Truth or Dare (2017 film)
9. I Am Nancy
10. Nancy Thompson (A Nightmare on Elm Street)
11. Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy
12. Home (2016 American film)
13. Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)
14. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
15. Freddy Krueger
16. A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
17. The Butterfly Room
18. The Life of Chuck (film)
19. The Demolitionist
20. Nickel Mountain