Acclaimed actress Marcia Rodd, who starred in films including black comedy Little Murders and TV shows like Trapper John, M.D, has died aged 87.
Rodd, who was also celebrated on Broadway, with an Tony Award nomination for 1973 musical Shelter, boasted a career that spanned over 60 years.
Other standout projects included starring in hit stage comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers on Broadway from 1969-71 before her screen career took off.
Her family announced the news via an obituary published on Wednesday night in the Los Angeles Times, revealing she died on December 27. The Hollywood Reporter was first to report the news.
Born in Lyons, Kansas in July 1938, Rodd made her Broadway debut as a replacement in the classic musical Oh, What a Lovely War, and played Dorothy Gale in a televised production of The Wizard of Oz, both in 1964.
She had moved to New York City with husband Dale Hagen after studying at Northwestern University and first following him to New Haven, Connecticut, where she enrolled at Yale Law School and performing in theatrical productions there.
Rodd’s first two film roles both occurred in 1971, starring opposite Elliott Gould in Little Murders as a designer who falls for his photographer character when she’s getting mugged, which was directed by Alan Arkin.
She also acted with Candice Bergen in romantic drama T.R. Bergen, and in 1979 was cast in Jonathan Demme’s neo-noir thriller Last Embrace, before next appearing in 1994 baseball movie The Scout, starring Brendan Fraser and Albert Brooks.
Rodd’s varied TV career saw her appear in some of the biggest shows being broadcast, although she turned down the opportunity to play the role of Maude’s daughter Carol Traynor after playing her in a 1972 episode of All in the Family, which served as the series Maude’s pilot. It went on to air for six seasons.
However, she made guest appearances in the likes of The New Dick Van Dyke Show, Young Dr Kildare, Barnaby Jones, All’s Fair and M*A*S*H, and landed a regular role on 1976’s sitcom The Dumplings with James Coco and Geraldine Brooks.
Other bigger roles followed when she starred in the main part of Elaine Dowling on sitcom 13 Queen’s Boulevard in 1979, and then played E.J. Riverside from 1980-86 on Trapper John, M.D., the major spin-off from the record-breaking and boundary pushing TV hit M*A*S*H.
In the 1980s, she appeared in the TV adaptation of Alan Alda’s film The Four Seasons as Claudia Zimmer, which was recently remade again for TV and Netflix by Tina Fey, and also featured in episodes of 21 Jump Street.
Rodd also popped up in episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Renegade, Family Law and Tim Allen’s 1990s sitcom Home Improvement.
Among her final performances was an appearance on long-running US soap The Young and the Restless in 2017, as well as an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in 2020 and Amazon Prime Video’s conspiracy series Hunters in 2023.
She is survived by her partner of 25 years, William Lewis; her brother, Stephen; her brother-in-law, Roger; her nieces, Laurie, Julie and Farrell; and her nephew, Zachary.
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