Lois Chiles was born April 15, 1947 in Houston, Texas as the eldest child to a prominent couple, Barbara Wayne Kirkland and Marion Clay Chiles. She was raised with her younger brothers Bill and Clay in Alice, Texas, and received higher education at the University of Texas at Austin, and Finch College in New York City, where she was discovered by a modeling scout. She ended her engagement to her college boyfriend, whom she really loved, because she felt there was a restlessness to her and started landing modeling assignments. Another boyfriend encouraged her to enroll in Sanford Meisner's acting class, when an agent named Billy Barnes signed her and got her cast in her first film in an interracial love story called _Together for Days , the New York investor and philanthropist who jump-started the Central Park Conservancy. In 2005, he finally persuaded her to marry him, and she quit acting altogether and moved to live with him in New York City. She turned to painting. She spends as much as five hours, five days a week, in her New York studio, painting. Her subjects, most often, are female nudes - a practice necessary to understanding what's underneath clothing when one paints. Chiles works the old-fashioned way, spending hours at a stretch with professional life models. Her works had a showing at Octavia Art Gallery in Houston in 2016. The couple maintains a full schedule, with pet projects that include the New York Historical Society and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. They spend summers entertaining at a spectacular historic estate in Islesboro, Maine. They are both honorary co-chairs of Northfield Mount Hermon, a school in Massachusetts, and he donated money to the school, and they named the Chiles Theater after her.
Was the original choice for Agent Triple X (Anya Amasova) in The Spy Who Loved Me , but as a moment of fate, got her chance as the 007 girl in Moonraker after Lewis Gilbert sat next to her on an airline flight.
Before entering films, she was one of the very top models of the 1970s.
Graduate of the University of Texas, Austin in 1969.
Attended prestigious Finch College where she was discovered by a Glamour magazine editor and that led to her fashion modeling career.
In 1982, she starred on the popular drama "Dallas" for one year, alongside Ken Kercheval. 10 years later, they played husband and wife on an episode of "In the Heat of the Night" .
Was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, not long after the death of her father M. Clay Chiles (brother of oil tycoon Eddie Chiles).
She is very active in raising money for the research and prevention of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, particularly because her brothers life was taken by same.
Her last name is pronounced like "files" with a "ch".
Jos Ferrer directed her on stage in productions of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Best Man" in the mid 1980s.
Took acting lessons from a number of prominent drama teachers: Roy London , Milton Katselas Jos Quintero and Sanford Meisner.
Has homes in both New York and Houston.
Battled breast cancer in 2005.
Had a long-time involvement with but never married Don Henley of the Eagles. In fact, her first marriage did not occur until she was in her late 50s with noted philanthropist and Wall Street broker Richard Gilder.
Her younger brother, with whom she was extremely close, tragically died of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1978. She made a choice to take a three-year hiatus from acting as a result just as her career had reached its peak. Her film career never fully recovered after she came back. She originally was offered the top Bondian love interest that Barbara Bach portrayed in The Spy Who Loved Me by director Lewis Gilbert but turned it down because of her initial self-imposed hiatus. The director, however, convinced her to play Holly Goodhead in Moonraker before she left the screen.
First attended the University of Texas at Austin before continuing her studies at the prestigious Finch College in New York City, where she was discovered for modeling by Glamour magazine and eventually joined the Wilhelmina company as a haute couture model.
Was the daughter of Barbara Wayne (ne Kirkland) and Marion Clay Chiles, who was the brother of oil tycoon and Texas Rangers owner Eddie Chiles.
(March 2005) Professor at University of Houston, Houston Texas
Her husband Richard Gilder donated money to a school called Northfield Mount Hermon, which is located at Mount Hermon in Massachusetts, so the school decided to name their theater the Chiles Theater after her.
Directed by four Academy Award winners: Sydney Pollack , James L. Brooks , Cameron Crowe , and Quentin Tarantino.
