Sharon Gans (July 29, 1935January 22, 2021) was an American actress and cult leader. Gans grew up in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

New York. She is best known for playing the role of Billy Pilgrim's wife, Valencia Merble, in George Roy Hill's the 1972 film version of Kurt Vonnegut's '' Slaughterhouse-Five''. Gans also starred in the award-winning documentary '' Artists and Orphans: A True Drama''. In 1966, she won an

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

for Best Actress for her performance in ''Soon Jack November''.

Career

In October 1988, Gans directed the play ''The Legend of Sharon Shashanovah'', presented at the 47th Street Theater in New York City. Gans co-wrote ''A Chekhov Concert'' with

Jordan Charney Jordan Charney (born April 1, 1937) is an American character actor. Many of his earliest roles were on daytime television, with appearances in numerous soaps. Jordan created the role of creepy Julian Dark in the early to mid-1960s on the CBS so ...

that was performed by the Moscow Contemporary Theater. Gans was a party to the 1978 US Supreme Court case called ''Kulko v. California Superior Court'' in which the Court held that Gans had no right to sue her ex-husband for child support while she remained in California and he in New York; the case authored by Justice Marshall describes the facts surrounding the Gans/Kulko marriage in some detail.

Cult allegations

Gans, and her late husband Alex Horn, founded and operated a "school" of the

Fourth Way The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East (c. 1890 – 1912). It combines and harmonizes what he saw as three established traditional "ways" or "schools": those of the body, ...

which some former students have asserted is actually a cult but which Gans had vehemently disputed. In December 1978, it was reported that Gans and Horn operated a theatre company in San Francisco where members accused Gans and Horn of brainwashing and violence. One former member of their group in New York, recounted specific allegations of public humiliation, forced labor, private adoptions, and ostracizing of former members. In 2002,

Jeannette Walls Jeannette Walls (born April 21, 1960) is an American author and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com and author of ''The Glass Castle'', a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood. Published in 2005, it had b ...

reported that Gans, who starred in the documentary film '' Artists and Orphans: A True Drama'' which had just been nominated for an Academy Award, had come under fire for various controversial practices, including attempts to force gay men to change their sexual orientation. Rosie O'Donnell, who had narrated the documentary, demanded to have her voice removed, claiming on her

show Show or The Show may refer to: Competition, event, or artistic production * Agricultural show, associated with agriculture and animal husbandry * Animal show, a judged event in the hobby of animal fancy ** Cat show ** Dog show ** Horse show ** Sp ...

that she did not know the connection between the film and Gans. "What is my luck that of all the theater groups in the world, the one I pick would be a cult?," she stated on her show. Gans died on January 22, 2021. Following her death, a

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

was filed against her Estate and several others in

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

claiming, among other things, that the plaintiffs were duped into becoming unpaid servants of Gans. In July 2022, ''Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos and Survival'' was published by Arcade Publishing. Written by Spencer Schneider, it recounts his 23 years as a member of the Gans group. According to news reports, the Gans Group continues to operate even after her death.

References

External links

* American stage actresses American film actresses 1942 births Living people 21st-century American women {{US-theat-actor-1940s-stub