{"id":2627,"date":"2026-05-30T16:49:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/30\/caitlin-oheaney-actress-in-he-knows-youre-alone-and-tales-of-the-gold-monkey-dies-at-73\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T16:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:49:00","slug":"caitlin-oheaney-actress-in-he-knows-youre-alone-and-tales-of-the-gold-monkey-dies-at-73","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/30\/caitlin-oheaney-actress-in-he-knows-youre-alone-and-tales-of-the-gold-monkey-dies-at-73\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin O\u2019Heaney, Actress in \u2018He Knows You\u2019re Alone\u2019 and \u2018Tales of the Gold Monkey,\u2019 Dies at 73"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tCaitlin O\u2019Heaney, who starred as the stalked bride to be in the cult slasher film He Knows You\u2019re Alone<\/em> and as a lounge singer and spy in the Donald P. Bellisario-created adventure series Tales of the Gold Monkey<\/em>, has died. She was 73.<\/p>\n

\tO\u2019Heaney died May 18 in Westchester County in New York, her friend Peter Davis told The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. They recently worked together on the short film Faith and Forgiveness<\/em>. No cause of death was revealed. <\/p>\n

\tTrained at Julliard under John Houseman and Michael Kahn, O\u2019Heaney also worked with Katharine Hepburn<\/a> on Broadway, played a 1930s Hollywood actress for Woody Allen in A Midsummer Night\u2019s Sex Comedy<\/em> (1982) and starred as Snow White on the first season of the 1987-88 ABC sitcom The Charmings<\/em>. \t<\/p>\n

\tThe green-eyed, auburn-haired O\u2019Heaney portrayed Amy Jensen, a woman menaced by a bride-obsessed killer, in He Knows You\u2019re Alone<\/em> (1980), an independent film picked up by MGM. Director Armand Mastroianni said he looked at more than 4,000 photos and interviewed more than 100 actresses before selecting her for the part.<\/p>\n

\tAnd on the 1982-83 series Tales of the Gold Monkey<\/em>, set in in 1938 in the South Pacific, she portrayed the American spy Sarah Stickney White, the love interest of fighter pilot Jake Cutter (Stephen Collins).<\/p>\n

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\t \t\t\t\t\tCaitlin O\u2019Heaney with Jeff MacKay (left) and Stephen Collins in 1982 on the set of \u2018Tales of the Gold Monkey.\u2019<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tABC\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tThe youngest of three daughters, Kathleen Helen Heaney was born on Aug. 16, 1952, in Milwaukee and raised in the suburb of Whitefish Bay. Her mother, Ruth, was a physical ed teacher, and her great-great-great grandfather was Jacob Best, owner of a brewery that would produce Pabst Blue Ribbon. \t<\/p>\n

\tShe joined the North Shore Children\u2019s Theatre at age 11, played clarinet in the band at Whitefish Bay High School and after graduation in 1970 won a scholarship to Julliard at age 17. Her classmates in the school\u2019s third-ever drama class included Christopher Reeve<\/a>, Robin Williams<\/a>, Christine Baranski and William Hurt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\tWhen she was 21, she modeled for Salvador Dal\u00ed in the grand ballroom and a penthouse room at the St. Regis in New York, she noted in an interview<\/a> in the late 1970s. The project never went forward, she was told, because Dal\u00ed\u2019s wife was jealous of her.<\/p>\n

\tShe reunited with Reeve in 1976 when she made it to Broadway to serve as the understudy to Wanda Bimson\u2019s ing\u00e9nue character in A Matter of Gravity<\/em>, starring Hepburn as an eccentric Englishwoman who hires a servant who can fly. (O\u2019Heaney wound up doing a great impersonation of Hepburn.)<\/p>\n

\tAfter starring in plays for the ACT Contemporary Theatre in Seattle and turns at the Public Theater and Playwrights Horizon in New York, she was cast as a tap dancer in the 1978 ABC comedy Apple Pie<\/em>. Despite being created by Norman Lear<\/a> and starring Rue McClanahan and Dabney Coleman<\/a>, the Depression-era show aired just two episodes before being canceled.<\/p>\n

\tShe decided to remain in Los Angeles and in 1979 starred in her first slasher film, Savage Weekend<\/em>, after which she adopted the stage name Caitlin O\u2019Heaney for He Knows You\u2019re Alone<\/em>. (Tom Hanks made his big-screen debut in the Staten Island-shot movie, playing a jogger in line for a ride at a country fair.) \t<\/p>\n

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\t \t\t\t\t\tCaitlin O\u2019Heaney with Don Scardino in 1980\u2019s \u2018He Knows You\u2019re Alone.\u2019<\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMGM\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\t\u201cI met Caitlin during the film\u2019s casting sessions and was immediately taken by the fact that she reminded me both in looks and in spirit of Vivien Leigh,\u201d Mastroianni wrote<\/a>. \u201cI reminded her several times of that during the making of the film, much to her amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tShe said she spent hours auditioning alongside Richard Dreyfuss for Steven Spielberg at the Sherry-Netherland hotel in New York for a role in Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em>, but \u201cthere was just no way I\u2019d look 28 with four kids. So the part went to Teri Garr<\/a>,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

\tAnd at the advice of her agent, she turned down a dialogue-free role as a nude Christ-like figure that would have opened Ken Russell\u2019s Altered States<\/em> (1980), a move she said she regretted.<\/p>\n

\tIn 1980, she starred as the actress Olive Lashbrooke in a revival of John van Druten\u2019s The Voice of the Turtle<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cMiss O\u2019Heaney is a wonder,\u201d critic Jennifer Dunning wrote in The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cWith a well-practiced movie star drawl, big eyes that snap like exclamation points and impeccable timing, she roars through the play like a tornado, playing just at the edge of fatal broadness, yet never losing the edge of sadness that lies under Olive\u2019s bitchy humor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tOn The Charmings<\/em>, Snow White and husband Prince Charming (Christopher Rich) awaken from a thousand-year spell and try to adapt to life in present-day Burbank, with the princess working in a department store. O\u2019Heaney was replaced by Carol Huston for the second season, which lasted 15 episodes before being canceled. \t<\/p>\n

\tShe also appeared on episodes of AfterMASH<\/em>, Spenser for Hire<\/em>, Silver Spoons<\/em>, St. Elsewhere<\/em>, Murder, She Wrote<\/em>, Beauty and the Beast<\/em>, L.A. Law<\/em> and Matlock<\/em> and in films including Wolfen<\/em> (1981) and the Spielberg-produced Three O\u2019Clock High<\/em> (1987).<\/p>\n

\tThe always interesting O\u2019Heaney served as an assistant cook in 1990 aboard a Greenpeace vessel in the North Sea and from her home in Los Angeles in the late \u201990s created a perfume called Caitlin, billed as a \u201cmedieval\u201d scent with overtones of apple, gardenia and sandalwood. She also sang with Pete Seeger, taught acting and loved animals.<\/p>\n

\tSurvivors include her sisters, Maureen and Coleen; nephews Robert, Patrick, Kevin, Ryan, Michael and Eric; grandnephews Bradley, Nicholas and Dayton; and grandnieces Myla, Kayla, Vanessa and Naomi.<\/p>\n

\tA celebration of life is being planned. Donations in her memory can be made to any animal welfare organization.<\/p>\n

\tIn 2017, O\u2019Heaney told<\/a> BuzzFeed News<\/em> that she was punched by Val Kilmer <\/a>during an audition for the part of Jim Morrison\u2019s girlfriend Pamela Courson in Oliver Stone\u2019s The Doors<\/em> (1991). The role eventually went to Meg Ryan.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWhen I got to the room and Val Kilmer picked me up and shaked me, throwing me down to the floor, Stone just stood there the whole time laughing,\u201d she recalled. She said the director walked her to the door and told her, \u201cThat got kind of wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tO\u2019Heaney said she signed a nondisclosure agreement and received $24,500 in a settlement but chose to speak out in the wake of allegations of sexual and physical harassment made against Harvey Weinstein. \t<\/p>\n

\t\u201cWomen have come together, saying, \u2018We\u2019re not going to be fucked by you,\u2019\u201d O\u2019Heaney. \u201cI finally have the confidence to speak about this. It\u2019s too long that I\u2019ve sat on this story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caitlin O\u2019Heaney, who starred as the stalked bride to be in the cult slasher film He Knows You\u2019re Alone and as a lounge singer and spy in the Donald P. Bellisario-created adventure series Tales of the Gold Monkey, has died. She was 73. O\u2019Heaney died May 18 in Westchester County in New York, her friend Peter Davis told The Hollywood Reporter. They recently worked together on the short film Faith and Forgiveness. No cause of death was revealed. Trained at Julliard under John Houseman and Michael Kahn, O\u2019Heaney also worked with Katharine Hepburn on Broadway, played a 1930s Hollywood actress for Woody Allen in A Midsummer Night\u2019s Sex Comedy (1982) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1593,2,1594,100,85,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christopher-reeve","category-hollywood","category-katharine-hepburn","category-obituaries","category-tv","category-tv-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}