Sharon Gans
Sharon Gans (July 29, 1935January 22, 2021) was an American actress and cult leader. Gans grew up in the Bronx 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 "". In 1966, she won an Obie Award 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 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 which  some former students have asserted is actually a cult but which Gans has 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 reported that Gans, who starred in the documentary film 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 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 was filed against her Estate and several others in New York Supreme Court claiming, among other things, that the plaintiffs were duped into becoming unpaid servants  of Gans.