Randee Heller

Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in West Hempstead, New York, on Long Island, of Russian Jewish heritage. After initially attending Emerson College in Boston, she returned to Long Island to graduate in 1969 from Adelphi University, where she studied theater.
The summer after graduation, she was cast in an Off-Broadway production of Godspell. She went on to do the Broadway musical Grease, playing Rizzo. In 1978, Heller moved from New York to California to pursue screen work.
Her role as Alice, one of the television's first lesbian characters, on the TV series Soap received mixed reviews, with criticism primarily directed not at her acting but at the stereotyping of her character. The Boston Herald said that the characterization shows how "the networks have generally depicted lesbians either as suicidal losers or sexual predators." For example, it identifies Alice…