Margaret Whitton obit

 

Margaret Whitton dead: Major League actress dies at 67

She was not on the list.

Margaret Whitton, the actress, and producer best known for playing the antagonist in Major League, died Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida after battling cancer, her producing partner Steven Tabakin confirmed to EW. She was 67 years old.

“Because Margaret kept her brief battle with cancer very private, the news of her death is one of those unexpected twists and turns in the story,” Tabakin said in a statement to EW. “As you might imagine, Margaret faced her illness with all the grace and wit she brought to every facet of her life.”

Born Nov. 30, 1949, in Philadelphia, Whitton began her acting career on stage. She made her off-Broadway debut in 1973 with Baby Goya, which also starred Olympia Dukakis (Steel Magnolias). She hit Broadway proper in 1982 with Nell Dunn’s Olivier Award-winning comedy Steaming.

Whitton found a broader audience with her turn as the villainous Rachel Phelps in the 1989 baseball comedy Major League. She played a sultry former showgirl who inherits the Cleveland Indians and tries to run the team into the ground in order to force a profitable move to Miami. She fails in the original movie and again in the 1994 sequel, in which she seeks revenge.

Outside of Major League, Whitton appeared in 9 1/2 Weeks (1986); The Man Without a Face (1993); The Secret of My Success (1987); and Ironweed (1987). On the small screen, she starred in Hometown, A Fine Romance, and Good & Evil.

“No one could deliver a one-liner like Margaret,” wrote Tabakin. “No one could be more scathing one minute and more vulnerable the next — she played all the notes. Girls wanna be her.”

Following her acting career, Whitton turned her eye to development and production. She was president and executive producer of Tashtego Films, where she worked with Tabakin. According to Tabakin, Whitton was a major philanthropist and a New York Yankees season-ticket holder; the production company’s website notes she wrote about baseball for The New York Times, The Village Voice, and more. She made her directorial debut with romantic feature A Bird of the Air starring Rachel Nichols and Jackson Hurst.

“We don’t dare mourn Margaret because she would have a wicked one-liner to snap us back to the curves, the twists, the turns, the joy. Those incredible eyes, that delicious laugh,” Tabakin wrote. “But we will remember her always, and how she made the world — and those of us lucky enough to share it with her for a while — just a little bit better.”

Whitton is survived by her husband of 23 years, Warren Spector. A memorial will be held in New York in early 2017.

Whitton was born on Fort Meade, Maryland, a US Army base in the suburbs of Baltimore. She spent many of her formative years in Japan; her father was an Army colonel, and her mother was a nurse. The family eventually relocated to Haddonfield, New Jersey, and then to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where Whitton started acting at Northeast High School.

 Distribution rights to her film A Bird of the Air were acquired by Freestyle Digital Media. It was based upon the novel The Loop by Joe Coomer and was adapted for film by Roger Towne. At the time of her death, Whitton served as president of Tashtego Films, an independent-film production company, co-founded with producer Steven Tabakin.

Filmography

Film

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1972            Parades           Jane            Credited as Peggy Whitton

1974            Teenage Hitchhikers            Sola Alcoa            Credited as Peggy Whitton

1982            National Lampoon's Movie Madness            Lousille Fogerty           

1982    Love Child    Jackie Steinberg         

1986    The Best of Times            Darla   

1986    9½ Weeks Molly  

1987    The Secret of My Success            Vera Prescott           

1987    Baby Boom            Executive in Conference Room            Uncredited

1987            Ironweed        Katrina Dougherty       

1989    Major League Rachel Phelps 

1989    Little Monsters            Holly Stevenson        

1992    Big Girls Don't Cry... They Get Even            Melinda Chartoff Powers

1993    The Man Without a Face            Catherine Palin           

1994    Major League II            Rachel Phelps 

1994    Trial by Jury      Jane Lyle     

 

Television

Year     Title            Role            Notes

1975–76            The Doctors            Joan Dancy            Unknown episodes

1984    Miami Vice     Cassie Bramlette            Episode: "Glades"

1985            Hometown            Barbara Donnelly            10 episodes

1986            Spenser: For Hire            Ellen Calone            Episode: "Widow's Walk"

1987    Tales from the Darkside            Mary Jones            Episode: "Mary, Mary"

1987    Cat & Mousse            Miriam            Television short film

1988            Spenser: For Hire            Janet Cole            Episode: "Substantial Justice"

1989    A Fine Romance            Louisa Phillips  13 episodes

1990    Kojak: None So Blind            Michele Hogarth            Television film

1991    The Summer My Father Grew Up       Naomi            Television film

1991    Good & Evil            Genevieve       6 episodes

1993    Cutters            Adrienne St. John            5 episodes

1994            Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills            Leslie Abramson            Television film