Gloria Stroock, actress on "Macmillan and Wife" and "Fun with Dick and Jane", has died at the age of 99
A member of a great show business family, she passed away following the deaths of her husband, Emmy Award-winning writer-producer Leonard B. Stern, and her sister, actress Geraldine Brooks.
Gloria Stroock, who played Rock Hudson's secretary in the TV series " Macmillan and Wife " and starred in such films as " Dick and Jane's Fun ", "The Contest " and "The Day of the Locust ", has died. She was 99 years old.
Stroock died May 5 of natural causes in Tucson, Arizona, her daughter, Kate Stern, told The Hollywood Reporter .
From 1956 until her death in 2011 at the age of 87, Stroock was married to screenwriter-producer Leonard B. Stern (" Abbott and Costello at the Foreign Legion", " The Filvers Show", "The Honeymooners", " Good Girl " and many others).
Her younger sister was Geraldine Brooks, a Tony Award nominee and part of a contract with Warner Bros (" Cry Wolf", " Embraceable You ").
Stroock played the role of Maggie, secretary to Hudson San Francisco Police Commissioner Stuart McMillan, in the last three seasons (1974-77) of the NBC series " McMillan and Wife", created by her husband.
She played the wife of art director Richard Dysart in John Schlesinger's "The Day of the Locust " (1975), starring Donald Sutherland and Karen Black; the wife of embezzler boss Ed McMahon in Ted Kotcheff's " Fun with Dick and Jane " (1977), starring George Segal and Jane Fonda; the mother of pianist Richard Dreyfuss in Joel Olianski's "The Competition " (1980).
Gloria Jane Stroock was born in Manhattan on July 10, 1924. Her father, Jimmy, owned Brooks Costume and Uniform Co. which at the time was the leading manufacturer of theatrical costumes in New York City. Her mother, Bianca, was in the business of designing contemporary stage wear. So she and her sister were always going to Broadway premieres, Ziegfeld Follies and the circus.
While at Camp Fernwood in Poland, Maine, Stroock wrote a song that campers still sing today, her family notes.
She hit Broadway in 1945, playing the roles of O , Brother and Meg in the revival of the play Little Women; worked in such television anthology shows as Kraft Theater, Starlight Theater and Studio One; modeled for Look and Life magazines ; and starred for portraits painted by noted artist Eugene Speicher.
She came to Los Angeles after marrying Stern in a ceremony at the St. Regis Hotel in New York. (Phil Silvers was a usher at their wedding).
Stroock played Rose Kennedy in the 1977 ABC television movie " Young Joe, Forgotten Kennedy, " and has also appeared in episodes of " Mom", "Martin Cain", "The Snoop Sisters, " "Baretta", "Operation Petticoat", and "The Archie Bunker Place" and in the 1983 Kotcheff film "Uncommon Valor" Baretta, Operation Petticoat and Archie Bunker Place , and in the 1983 Kotcheff film Extraordinary Valor.
She played at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills for 35 years, appearing in "Miss Daisy's Driver " and other plays. Her memoir " Cast of Characters " was published when she was 93, and at age 95 she had a solo exhibition of her sculptural work.
"An elegant, gracious and radiant woman, Gloria disliked freeways and bad grammar, never met a bar of dark chocolate she didn't love, and had an amazing memory for song lyrics", her family wrote.
"When asked in the mid-90s what she owes her longevity to, she said, 'I wake up singing every day and go to bed in the same mood, and that ensures I'm in a good mood all day and have pleasant dreams at night.'"
She died at the home of her son, Emmy-nominated editor Michael Stern ("The X-Files," "Angel", " Orange is the New Black").
In addition to her son and daughter, she is survived by daughter-in-law Laura, grandchildren Ryan and Dylan, and great-grandchildren Gabriella, Jackson, Grayson, Noir and JJ.
Brooks, who was 15 months younger than Stroock, died in 1977 at age 51 of a heart attack while undergoing treatment for cancer. She was married to writer-producer Herb Sargent (co-creator of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update) and Oscar-winning novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg.