- Cheryl Lynn Miller was the archetypal 1960s American 'girl-next-door'. A gorgeous blonde with a peaches-and-cream complexion, she hailed from Sherman Oaks, California, born to an architect father and a mother who worked in the accounting department at Sears, Roebuck and Co. Having graduated from high school with a predilection for science and music, Cheryl pursued further studies at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. She then did some modelling work and began acting in occasional supporting roles on television from 1957. In her spare time, she enjoyed varied outdoor activities, such as skiing, jogging and horseback riding.
Cheryl's pivotal years were 1965 and 1966. In 1965, she appeared with an elephant and a chimpanzee in several episodes of the popular family series Flipper (1964). This was noticed by Walt Disney, who personally signed her under contract for a small role in the comedy The Monkey's Uncle (1965), describing her as 'the typical American girl'. More importantly, Cheryl also came to the attention of writer-producer Ivan Tors. Tors was impressed by her ability to work with animals and proceeded to cast Cheryl in a co-starring role as the spirited Paula Tracy (daughter of a veterinarian based at an East African animal hospital) in Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion (1965). This cinematic release served as the de facto pilot for the ensuing CBS TV series Daktari (1966). Her fortuitous casting also coincided with Cheryl becoming one of twelve young actresses awarded the title of Hollywood Deb Star of 1966, as well as being named Miss Golden Globe (as co-presenter with Andy Williams of the Golden Globe Awards).
Before filming began, Cheryl trained for a month at a 200-acre animal farm called Africa U.S.A., located forty miles north of Los Angeles. It was operated by Ivan Tors in conjunction with animal behaviorist and author Ralph Helfer, who also created Marine World. While there, Cheryl learned to walk among and interact with lions, chimps, cheetahs and leopards. She ended up forming a special bond with a tame tiger named Sarang.
Daktari had a run of four seasons and 89 episodes. By present standards, the show has not aged particularly well. It could be argued, that its strongest points were the cute and highly photogenic Cheryl, Clarence the lovable lion (who really was cross-eyed and extremely tame) and Judy the Chimpanzee (also familiar to viewers as 'Debbie the Bloop' from Lost in Space (1965), but rumoured to have been rather less docile than Clarence). On the minus side: simplistic scripts bordering on twee, wooden acting from Cheryl's (human) co-stars and excessive use of frequently incongruous stock footage, some of it repeated over and over in the course of multiple episodes. No new footage for the series was ever shot in Africa.
In August 1970, Cheryl had a brief run as the Dodge "Fever Girl," promoting the car brand in magazine spreads, TV ads and national car shows. This gig lasted a couple of years. Until the end of the decade, Cheryl continued to make sporadic guest appearances in shows like Cade's County (1971), Barnaby Jones (1973), Gemini Man (1976) and Police Story (1973). She left the world of acting in 1980, later declaring "I had earned enough money. I wanted to concentrate purely on my family."- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis
- SpousesRobert Leo Kasselmann(September 2, 1989 - June 8, 2004) (his death)Robert Emil Seidenglanz(1977 - December 20, 1983) (divorced, 1 child)Stanley Grant Shapiro(December 13, 1968 - April 1971) (divorced)
- ChildrenRonn KasselmannRob Kasselmann
- ParentsHoward MillerElsie Miller
- 1966 Deb Star.
- Walt Disney picks her as his own contractee as "The Typical American Girl." Screen Stories tells that she "is gorgeous and single and the fastest girl in Sherman Oaks.".
- Ivan Tors discovers her during the filming of a "Flipper (1964)" segment.
- While Cheryl was on the TV series Daktari (1966), she got along fantastically with Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion, and all the other animals that she came across during the series.
- In 1992, her son Erik auditioned at the exclusive Magic Castle in Hollywood, a club for working magicians, which lowered its minimum age from 14 to 12, so he could become a member.
- I was really against my son Erik Seidenglanz being a street performing magician. "But he was determined to go when it got dark, because there was a bigger crowd coming in for yogurt then. I thought that as soon as he headed up the street in the dark he'd be scared. Well, he went out the front door, and about a minute later he was back saying, 'Would you walk with me up to the corner? It's dark.' So I went up with him and parked myself across the street on the bus stop bench watching, the protective mother."
- I want to learn something new constantly.
- My time with Daktari (1966) was wonderful.
- I had to fight a crocodile under water with a plastic-knife. It's jaws were tightly shut with a wire. It tumbled me over three times. That wasn't funny.
- Judy the Chimpanzee constantly kissed me on the lips.
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