Belinda Taubman Bauer (born Belinda Taubman; 13 June 1950) is an Australian-born former actress and spiritual psychologist. She gained prominence in the 1980s for her roles in American films and television before transitioning into a career in psychology.

Early and personal life

Bauer is a descendant of Nathaniel James Taubman, co-founder of Taubman’s Paints, a leading Australian paint manufacturing company established in the early 20th century. Her maternal family also owned Ritchie Brothers, a renowned Sydney-based manufacturer of railway rolling stock and trams. She grew up in Pymble, Sydney, and attended Abbotsleigh School. After starting her career as a ballet dancer and model, Bauer moved to New York in the early 1970s, adopting the surname Bauer, and pursued a successful acting career in Hollywood.

Career

Starting her career as a ballet dancer, TV actress and model, she competed as Belinda Taubman in several beauty contests in Sydney, Australia, winning Miss Queen of the Pacific, in 1968. Belinda Taubman relocated to New York in the early 1970s, and changed her name to Bauer. Belinda Bauer worked in New York as a model as the face of Revlon and appearing in fashion magazines. She became popular in several American cult films of the late 1970s and 1980s, including Winter Kills, The American Success Company, Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann and Flashdance. Between television work, she also appeared in the films The Rosary Murders and RoboCop 2. Bauer's main title roles were in the television films The Sins of Dorian Gray (1983) (a rendition of the Oscar Wilde novel The Picture of Dorian Gray); a live-action Rankin/Bass production called Starcrossed (1985), in which she played an alien woman living on Earth; and as Christine Scavello in the supernatural thriller Dean R. Koontz's Servants of Twilight (1991). She also appeared in the pilot of the television series Airwolf (1984) as Gabrielle Ademaur, a love interest for Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent). Her last credited appearance was in the erotic thriller Poison Ivy II: Lily (1996). She often portrayed strong female characters, including Delilah in the film Samson and Delilah (1984) Bauer presently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she works as a spiritual psychologist.

Selected filmography