Topic: Dinah Manoff

Dinah Beth Manoff (born January 25, 1958) is an American stage, film and television actress and television director best known for her roles as Marty in the film Grease and Carol Weston on TV's Empty Nest. Manoff is daughter to Lee Grant and Arnold Manoff. Her career has spanned over three decades.

Manoff was born on 25 January 1958 in New York City, New York. Her mother is actress, director, and writer Lee Grant (née Lyova Rosenthal) and screenwriter Arnold Manoff (died 1965) was her father. They divorced in 1960 but Grant married Joseph Feury in 1962. Manoff spent most of her childhood and teenage years in New York. In 1975, in an attempt to have her mother's job at the age of 17, Manoff was accepted into the Actors Studio in her hometown of New York City.

Manoff's very first project in what would be a long career was in the independent film Everybody Rides the Carousel, she provided one of the voices in the 7th stage. In 1976, Manoff made her first television appearance on the PBS production of The Stronger. This was followed by a guest appearance on Welcome Back, Kotter. The episode was entitled Sadie Hawkins Day. Dinah made a guest appearance on another show: Visions. In 1977 she made a cameo appearance in her first TV movie, Raid on Entebbe. In 1978, Manoff got the role of Elaine Lefkowitz Dallas on the TV sitcom Soap and remained on the show until the end of the year. Manoff appeared in her first—and one of her most recognized—film roles as Marty Maraschino, one of the Pink Ladies in the movie version of Grease, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, however it was filmed before Manoff's stint on Soap. Dinah's post-Grease appearances in 1979 include $weepstake$, Lou Grant (a spinoff of The Mary Tyler Moore Show), and Mork and Mindy.