LOS ANGELES: Marcia Wallace, who was a breast cancer survivor for twenty-eight years, died at age of seventy.
Wallace was best known for her roles as Carol Kester Bondurant, the receptionist for Bob Newhart (and dentist Jerry) on the 1972 television series ‘The Bob Newhart Show’, and as the voice of Edna Krabappel on ‘The Simpsons’, for which she won an Emmy for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992.
She was an occasional celebrity panelist on Match Game and essayed the role of ‘Mrs Carruthers’ in a few episodes of the ABC sitcom ‘Full House’. She also played the maid on the short-lived TV series ‘That’s My Bush!’ and also appeared in episode #227 of Bewitched (Laugh, Clown, Laugh), as Darrin’s secretary, in 1971.
Wallace was a breast cancer survivor and activist who lectured on the subject. On January 27, 2007, Marcia won the Gilda Radner Courage Award from Roswell Park Cancer Institute for helping educate Americans about the importance of early cancer detection and inspiring others through her twenty years as a breast cancer survivor. Her book, ‘Don’t Look Back We’re Not Going That Way’, is a biography that recounts the early detection of her breast cancer, the loss of her husband Denny to cancer who she was married to for six years, her nervous breakdown, her single motherhood and other experiences.
The couple had one son, Michael Hawley. It has become a sad tradition of the extremely long-running show to simply cease using characters whose voice actors pass away.
The first instance was when Phil Hartman died in 1998, and the show retired his sleazy attorney Lionel Hutz and desperate pretty-boy actor Troy McClure. Lunchlady Doris was retired as a speaking role for nearly a decade after actress Doris Grau’s death in 1995, but has made brief appearances since 2006 with Tress MacNeille as the voice.
May her soul rest in peace.
