Sarah Jessica Parker
 

Apparently she is Greek, but does anyone know which sorority?

I have found tons of websites that list her as a "Famous Greek" but none ever say which sorority.

-Emily

i've read places that she is Greek, too, but i've also read (in several places) that she didn't attend college.

I heard she went to some ballet school before and never attended college, but I also heard that she was an Alpha Phi... So, Who knows?

I just read about 5 bios and they all say she didn't attend any college, she trained in dance and vocal and acting and in 1982 after graduation started in a show called "Square Pegs"

Urban Legend!
 

This story never fails to die...

She didn't attend college, and possibly didn't finish high school. Gah. We've had a few posts like this one before.

Most likely, there was a woman in a chapter named "Sarah Parker" (let's face it, it's a pretty common name) and it was assumed that it was her. That's still not as bad as saying that Betty Crocker was in a sorority. :rolleyes: Yeah, I hear Buffy Summers and Mallory Keaton were in sororities too.

Yikes! Jump off your high horse. Many people out there don't know Betty Crocker is not a real person. She has an image, a voice, a signature, etc... It's correct that she is not real and obviously not greek, but her creator was a Delta Zeta.

I agree that a lot of people think she is real, but my gripe is CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK YOUR FACTS BEFORE YOU PUT THEM ON YOUR WEBSITE. Not to mention your spelling and grammar - it's hard to say that sororities help you intellectually when every other word on your most visible recruiting tool is misspelled.

If a DZ created Betty Crocker, then that's fine to say that. I just have a very low urban myth tolerance.

Don't forget also that the Screen Actor's Guild/Actors Equity require each actor/actress to have a unique stage name to avoid confusion; thus plain ol' Sarah Parker (aka Mrs. Matthew Broderick -- I don't think this style of address is even used today! :)) had to choose 'Sarah Jessica Parker' to make her stage name unique.

Others with unique stage names:

Jennifer Jason Leigh (real name: Jennifer Leigh Morrow) -- the Jason honors a close friend of the family, the late actor Jason Robards.

Eric Braeden (real name: Hans Gudegast) -- You might be familiar witrh this name in the daytime soaps; if you ever catch an episode of the old TV series The Rat Patrol you'll see him acting under his real name.

i just thought this was funny b/c our advisor from nationals last semester was named Sarah Parker and she was the cutest thing ever. It's her! Sarah Jessica Parker is an Alpha Chi!!!!!



NOTE the sarcasm pls. They're not related. Her middle name isn't Jessica. thanx.

Ah, my dear 33 girl....Don't forget those truckloads of sorority pins that have been left behind on the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. ;) (Hey, just suspend your disbelief despite the fact that no human being has ever been to Mars or Jupiter....or Saturn)

well, we have Greeks that are a jennifer lopez and an erin carter

Clark Kent is a Kappa Sigma. . .
Pin number . . . oh I forget.

33, I agree with you totally. If you're going to put something on the Internet, PLEASE fact-check! Okay, so the woman who created Betty Crocker was a DZ...put THAT on the site, not that Betty Crocker was one! :p At LEAST check to see if that person went to college!

PM_Mama, I thought the reason Julia Roberts is an honorary Phi Mu is because she portrayed the late Susan Harling Robinson in Steel Magnolias, who was a Phi Mu. Flipping through IMDB, I couldn't find any roles in which SJP portrayed a real member of an actual sorority. I think this myth has remained simply because SJP is a celebrity, especially among young, trendy, college women.

Yes, and I think it needs to be emphasized that Betty Crocker is not even a person nor was she ever. She was/is a fictitious character created by General Mills or General Foods or whatever their name is.

----------------------------
Q: Who was Betty Crocker?

A: One of the best-known women of the interwar years—Betty Crocker—never existed.

The Washburn Crosby Company of Minneapolis, one of the six big milling companies that merged into General Mills in 1928, received thousands of requests each year in the late 1910s and early 1920s for answers to baking questions. In 1921, managers decided that it would be more intimate to sign the responses personally; they combined the last name of a retired company executive, William Crocker, with the first name “Betty,” which was thought of as “warm and friendly.” The signature came from a secretary, who won a contest among female employees. (The same signature still appears on Betty Crocker products.)

In 1924, Betty Crocker acquired a voice with the radio debut of the nation’s first cooking show, which featured thirteen different actresses working from radio stations across the country. Later it became a national broadcast, The Betty Crocker School of the Air, which ran for twenty-four years.

Finally, in 1936 Betty Crocker got a face. Artist Neysa McMein brought together all the women in the company’s Home Service Department and “blended their features into an official likeness.” The widely circulated portrait reinforced the popular belief that Betty Crocker was a real woman. One public opinion poll rated her as the second most famous woman in America after Eleanor Roosevelt.

Over the next seventy-five years, her face has changed seven times: she became younger in 1955; she became a “professional” woman in 1980; and in 1996 she became multicultural, acquiring a slightly darker and more “ethnic” look.

P.S. Sara Lee is a real person!

Sources; Charles Panati, Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (1989); Milton Moskowitz, Robert Levering, and Michael Katz, Everybody’s Business: A Field Guide to the 400 Leading Companies in America (1990); Tulsa World, March 27, 1996.
--------------------
The many faces of Betty:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelig...s/bettys1.jpeg http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelig...s/bettys2.jpeg

When they re did the Betty Crocker picture a while back, they had a contest for people who bake and had recipies and my grandpas neighbor Nancy Busch is the eyes of Betty Crocker!!! Thats so cool. They took features of each winner, but the eyes?! Thats a big part! :)

So next time you bake, think of my g-pas neighbor!

My mom was friends with the lady on the Blue Bonnet package. I don't know if she was in a sorority. :)

don't take this one too seriously, i'm being SILLY!
 

Cream, everyone knows that the Blue Bonnet lady was a Tri-Delt! That's why her bonnet is blue and the box is gold! :p

Re: don't take this one too seriously, i'm being SILLY!
 

lol! At first I thought that you were serious and then I looked at the heading.

Don't forget these "legends":

Trident gum was so named b/c the product manager's wife is a Tri-Delt.

Wrigley's Spearmint Gum was developed by Pi Phi, and marked with the arrow.

Hallmark is owned by a ZTA, hence the crown.

I've heard the rumor Anne Klein is an ADPi b/c of the trademark lion, but I've never known it to be confirmed.

Even if it's true, or not true, it's still fun to see our symbols! I love the carpool lane for the diamonds! :)

I don't think it matters or not what "famous" people are members of our GLO's. It is fun to be proud of the "brand," but at the end of the day it matters more the people who are there for you who make your sisterhood/brotherhood a home to you. :)

Pi Love,
An ADPi

I remember that from my college roommate. I don't know if it is true of just a coincidence that Anne Klein's lion earrings were popular back then.

I saw on a website that Betsy Johnson the designer was a DG, but that was the first I'd heard of it.

Jenny is not Greek
 

I pledged Phi Sigma Kappa at SIU Carbondale in 1991. I was very active in the IFC, and tuned into the system. Take my word for it, (or not I suppose) she did go to School at SIUC, and she did NOT "Go Greek". She did however, work at a Greek hangout called The American Tap (I miss that place) as a bartender.

Thanks.

Well I wasn't too sure about SJP, that's why I posted here online!

I've heard about Anne Klein being an ADPi, but I can't seem to find a straight answer about that....!?! Someone even mentioned it over in the ADPi forum, but I'm not 100% sure.

What I AM 100% sure about is that Judy Woodruff (aka of CNN fame) is an ADPi...in fact she is a member of my chapter (Omicron--Duke University)....not that she's anything like SJP or anything :)

-Emily

My "favorite" urban legend is that the blue diamonds in Lucky Charms are because somebody at the cereal company's daughter wanted to go ADPi! Now, THAT's stretching it!

I'm fairly certain that Anne Klein is not an ADPi, but has been given some sort of an honorary status due to her wonderful trademark lions. I think I remember seeing that in an Adelphean a while ago.

A fun thread would be "Celebrities Who Pledged, but never got initated"! I know that Farrah Fawcett was a Tri-Delt pledge, and Michelle Pfeiffer was an ADPi pledge - there has to be more!


(edited to correct Anne Klein's trademark "loins" to "lions"!! What was I thinking?!?!?!?)

Okay... so I did a search and this is what I found on the Betty Crocker/Greek story. She is listed on the Kappa Alpha Theta Web site as a famous Theta (kappaalphatheta.org):

Marjorie Child Husted
Creator and Director of the Betty Crocker Homemaking Service for General Mills, beginning in 1928. Child was the voice of Betty Crocker on radio.
Upsilon/University of Minnesota

As for Betsy Johnson, I have heard she was in several sororities, but in interviews with her, have never even heard her mention college... does anyone know? I adore her clothes!

The following is from an article in the Ohio University Post on the Ohio Valley Summer Theatre from last year...

"Also, some current Hollywood actors got their first taste of acting in OVST.

"Sarah Jessica Parker was a little girl in ooDark of the Moonoo in 1968," Evarts said. "Her mother was very active in OVST."

Other performers such as Richard Dean Anderson, who played the title role in the TV series ooMacGyveroo and Louise Fletcher, who won an Academy Award for her part as the nurse in ooOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nestoo also acted in OVST productions."

I can't find the documentation, but here's what I believe to be true:

Sarah Jessica Parker grew up in Athens, Ohio, the home of Ohio University where either one or both of her parents were/are on the faculty. I have never seen anything to indicate that she attended O.U. or was in any Greek Organization. I think, as has been mentioned above, that she went for acting and dance lessons insead of college.

Before another thread begins, Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly) did receive her college degree with honors from the Ohio University Theatre Department -- but was not in any O.U. sorority chapter.

Born in Nelsonville, OH, on March 25, 1965, as the fourth of eight siblings, Parker grew up in relative poverty following the divorce of her mother, an elementary school teacher, and her father, an aspiring writer. Raised by her mother and often out-of-work stepfather, she trained as a dancer and singer, bringing home paychecks from a young age.
-------------

DeltAlum, is Nelsonville near Athens? Thanks for the information!

Maybe our next thread should be "Who's NOT in a Sorority? Clearing up rumours and urban legends." :p

I believe that Sarah Jessica Parker lived in Cincinnati at some point as well? Munchkin, Nelsonville is about 3 minutes away from Athens....there's not much there except a movie theater.
Oh and DeltAlum, the rumor started last year right after recruitment that Piper Perabo was a Pi Phi but that was quickly cleared up. Her brother did think about pledging a fraternity but I believe he decided to focus on acting.


Oh, and don't forget Mallory Keaton WAS in a sorority ON THE SHOW. I have no idea about what Tracey Gold (is that her name) might have done.

Now there's a great idea. We would probably mess that up, too. Maybe one that says, "Who cares?"

Lioness exagerates just a little. Nelsonville is about 12 miles North of Athens on US Route 33 which is the road to Columbus -- so it's really more like 10 minutes away. (Actually, I'm staying at a new hotel in Nelsonville for OU Homecoming this Fall because it costs about 1/3 as much as the Athens hotels inflated rates for that weekend.) It does have several traffic lights, but is a pretty small, fairly poor town. The big event there was the annual, "Nelsonville Parade of the Hills" at which I had to do a remote broadcast for an Athens station one year before Nelsonville got its own radio station. Starting to get the picture?

I wonder if Sarah was ever Miss Parade of the Hills? I digress.

There are a number of O.U. faculty and/or staff members who live there -- or in small towns or enclaves (good word, huh?) in between.

Basically, the entire Southeast Ohio (Apalacian) region centers socially and economically around Athens and the University, so even if neither of her parents worked for O.U. (I'm still pretty sure I read that at least one of them did), it would explain her mother's interest in the Theatre there. My wife's degree is in Theatre from Ohio, and worked OVST a couple of years, but wasn't in Dark of the Moon, although she may have worked the show. The department has turned out several moderate to fairly large TV and movie celebrities, but I don't know if any were Greek so I'm not starting any more urban (if you can call Athens that) legends.

I've always heard that Betsey Johnson was an Alpha Xi Delta, specifically from the Eta chapter at Syracuse. This is hard to confirm since AXiD doesn't have a "Famous Alums" section on their website (that I could find, at least), but Syracuse's Greek website does list her as a Greek alum, although it doesn't say which sorority.

im not sure about this but i had heard that Sarah Jessica Parker attended the university of Cincinnati, but never finished. i also was told she was a pledge for theta phi.

DA, have you SEEN Coyote Ugly? I don't know that she's necessarily a good advertisement for the OU theater department. :p

Yeah, I've seen it. Amazing that it didn't win some kind of award. We'll just stop right there. Anybody who can juggle liquor bottles and dance at the same time is OK by me! (cough!)

I'm sure she will do some really deep roles in the future.

OK, then.

By the way, if Sarah Jessica Parker did go to college, Cincinnati would have been the logical place because of the College Conservatory of Music (CCM) which has an excellent reputation and sends a lot of people into the entertainment industry.

However, it's not the cheapest school (although not terrible since it is now state supported -- might not have been back then), and if she and her mother were really that destitute, I would be surprized if they could have afforded the college and the cost of a sorority. Just a thought.

I know it's only noon, but this is the funniest thing I have read today! lol!:D

next
 

...

Being born and raised in Cincinnati, I will confirm that Cincinnati "claims" Sarah Jessica Parker. She did attend University of Cincinnati and was a member of Theta Phi Alpha which I believe still exists on the UC Campus today. UC's sororities and fraternities have always been in the news over the past years due to hazing incidents(mostly binge drinking). I am not sure of the reputation now but I do know that UC is trying to improve Greek Life.

well, she WAS Annie on Broadway for a few years, wasn't she? That would have brought in a little money.

Here is a mini biography of SJP from IMDB. I put the pertinent part in bold print.

Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to parents Stephen Parker and Barbra Forste (who remarried Paul Forste after divorcing Sarah's father). After her mother wed Forste, Sarah, her two brothers and her sister, joined Forste's four children. Trained in singing and ballet, Sarah was cast in the Broadway production of "The Innocents", which prompted her family to relocate to New Jersey. Already a professional performer (she studied at the American Ballet School and the Professional Children's School), Sarah was cast in "The Sound of Music" (along with four of her siblings), and landed the lead in the Broadway run of "Annie". After a year as the free-spirited orphan, Sarah attended Dwight Morrow High School, while continuing to add more credits to her acting resume. She landed a role in the made-for-TV movie My Body, My Child (1982) (TV), before being cast as one of the lead roles in the 1982 sitcom "Square Pegs" (1982), as high-schooler Patty Green. Once a graduate, Sarah decided to pursue a full-time acting career rather than further her education. Since "Square Pegs" (1982) didn't last more than a year, Sarah moved on to supporting film roles in movies such as Footloose (1984), Firstborn (1984), and the lead role in the teenage film Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985). Sarah was having lots of fun, although she had yet to land a star-turning role. After more television appearances in series and made-for-TV movies including _"Year in the Life, A" (1987) (mini)_ , Room Upstairs, The (1987) (TV) and Dadah Is Death (1988) (TV), Sarah finally landed the role of Steve Martin's bubbly lover in the 1991 comedy L.A. Story (1991). More substantial film roles soon followed, starting with a role opposite Nicolas Cage in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) (which foreshadowed her comedic talent), Hocus Pocus (1993) and Ed Wood (1994). A big Woody Allen fan, she starred opposite the renowned filmmaker in the TV movie Sunshine Boys, The (1995) (TV), and that same year, she landed a starring role in Miami Rhapsody (1995). 1996 was a film intensive year with roles in First Wives Club, The (1996), If Lucy Fell (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996). All the while making a name for herself in film, Sarah was gaining respect as a theater actress, with her lead role as a dog (hard to imagine, but true) in the off-Broadway "Sylvia," and her Broadway roles in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (starring her present husband, Matthew Broderick), and the Tony-Award nominated "Once Upon a Mattress." But Sarah's star has shot up since her portrayal of Manhattan sex-columnist Carrie Bradshaw in the HBO series "Sex and the City" (1998). Sarah's Golden Globe Best Actress victory in 2000 only underscores the fact that she plays the role of Carrie as though it were literally written for her. Sarah has been happily married to fellow actor Matthew Broderick for quite a while now. Before the marriage, she dated Robert Downey Jr. (who she also lived with), and the late John Kennedy Jr. When not serving as lead actress and producer of "Sex and the City" (1998), Sarah is a member of Hollywood's Women's Political Committee, and is UNICEF's representative for the Performing Arts.

YES the UC, epslion, chapter of Theta Phi still exists