Dinah Manoff was born in New York City, New York, to screenwriter
Arnold Manoff and actress, director, and
writer
Lee Grant. She began her
professional career in the PBS production of "The Great Cherub Knitwear
Strike". After subsequent guest appearances on various television
series, she received a Tony Award in 1980 for her performance in the
Broadway production of
Neil Simon's
"I Ought To Be In Pictures", a role she reprised in the 1982 film version,
starring opposite
Walter Matthau.
Additional theater credits include Broadway's "Leader of the Pack",
"Alfred and Victoria", "Kingdom on Earth" and the Los Angeles stage
production of "Love Letters", opposite
Patrick Cassidy. On television,
Manoff was a regular on the Witt-Thomas-Harris sitcoms
Soap (1977) and
Empty Nest (1988), and also appeared in the
television movies
The Cover Girl and the Cop (1989)
(aka "Beauty & Denise"),
Raid on Entebbe (1976),
For Ladies Only (1981),
The Seduction of Gina (1984),
A Matter of Sex (1984),
Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac (1984),
the miniseries
Celebrity (1984) and
the NBC movie-of-the-week
Babies (1990), with
Lindsay Wagner. As well as her starring role in
I Ought to Be in Pictures (1982), Manoff's feature
film credits include
Grease (1978),
Ordinary People (1980),
Bloodhounds of Broadway (1989),
Backfire (1987) and
Child's Play (1988).