SUMMER STARS

It happens every year. Certain summer films give certain actors a chance to bloom. But what happens once the warm weather ends? We checked in on a decade’s worth of summer stars to see what’s happened since.

1977: DIDI CONN IN ‘YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE’

The role of a young singer-songwriter who finally finds recording fame put her in the spotlight. Actually, the film’s title song--an enormous hit which went on to win an Academy Award--wasn’t performed by Conn, either in the film (Kasey Cisyk was the ghost singer) or on the airwaves (Debby Boone had those honors). But Conn can--and does sing; she recently warbled in a Santa Barbara production of “Anything Goes.”

So why didn’t she belt out “You Light Up My Life”? “I was emotionally nuts when making the movie, and the throat is the bottleneck between the heart and the brain. I had an obstruction,” said Conn.

Yet since that time, Conn has played mostly cutesy comedy parts: “The characters I usually get offered are described as ‘none too bright’ or ‘funny but a little air-brained,’ ” said Conn, whose films include “Almost Summer,” “Grease,” “Grease II” and “The Magic Show.” She also has appeared in a string of TV movies and in two series: Danny Thomas’ “The Practice” and “Benson.”

“I thought ‘Benson’ was going to be more of an ensemble show,” Conn said. “But it was called ‘Benson’ for a reason. My role (as the secretary) was frustrating. I was trying to stuff my depth of passion, imagination and energy into a teeny baby slipper.”

She had better luck with the student film, “Violet,” which won a 1982 Academy Award for best live-action short. “It was about a girl with a terrible scar on her face,” Conn said. “The whole film was my character. Afterward, people said to me, ‘Why aren’t you playing more parts like that?’ The answer is that those really hot roles go to Meryl Streep.”

Conn’s persistence with playwright John Patrick Shanley got her the starring role in the West Coast premiere of his drama “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” staged at L.A.’s Back Alley Theatre in January. “That’s the kind of dramatic work I want to do,” she said, “and I had to create it for myself. . . . The business of working at getting work is pretty intense. But you don’t get the rewards of actually working.”

Conn, married to composer David Shire, also is a founder of First Stage, which has met every Tuesday for three years to give readings of new plays and screenplays.