‘Cinderella’ actress finds new success

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

Cinderella has worked happily ever after.

Forty-five years after making a splash with millions of TV viewers as the princess-to-be in “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Cinderella,’” Lesley Ann Warren has found renewed success in two TV shows and a recent art-house comedy.

The 64-year-old actress plays an intrusive mom in the movie “A Little Help,” she returned in the spring to “Desperate Housewives” as Teri Hatcher’s mother and on Sunday, her character helps a wedding go awry on the season finale of USA’s “In Plain Sight.”

Warren portrays Jinx, the newly sober, sometimes problematic, always unconventional mother of Witness Protection Program marshal Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack) and bride-to-be Brandi (Nichole Hiltz). Sunday’s finale spins around Brandi’s wedding and Mary being trapped while trying to protect a witness.

Television has been key to Warren’s success almost from the start. She made her Broadway debut in 1963’s “110 in the Shade” and won a Theatre World Award for the 1965 stage flop “Drat! The Cat!” but it was “Cinderella” in 1965 that made her a star. The special was rebroadcast by CBS eight times through February 1974.

Remembering “Cinderella” makes Warren’s eyes well with tears. “It was momentous for me to get that role,” she said.

She still gets letters from school children. “To see that it has had an incredible impact on people has moved me beyond expression.”