Marcia Rodd obit

Marcia Rodd, Actress in ‘Little Murders’ and Broadway’s ‘Last of the Red Hot Lovers,’ Dies at 87

The Kansas native and Tony nominee also appeared in two Jonathan Demme films and turned down the opportunity to play Bea Arthur’s daughter on ‘Maude.’ 

She was not on the list.

Marcia Rodd, the Tony-nominated actress who starred opposite Elliott Gould in the Jules Feiffer black comedy Little Murders and originated the role of Bea Arthur’s daughter in the pilot for Maude, died Dec. 27, her family announced. She was 87.

Rodd’s first love was the stage, and she portrayed the pot-smoking starlet Bobbi opposite Linda Lavin, James Coco and Doris Roberts in Neil Simon’s 1969-71 hit Broadway comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.

In his review in The New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote that Rodd supplied “a naive, little-girl charm to give an edge of innocence to her [character’s] deprived depravity.”

She received her Tony nomination for best actress in a musical in 1973 for her turn as a deserted wife in the kooky Austin Pendleton-directed Shelter but lost out to Glynis Johns for A Little Night Music.

In Little Murders (1971), directed by Alan Arkin, Rodd starred as the predatory Patsy Newquist, a New York interior designer with an eccentric family — Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson play her parents, Jon Korkes her brother — who falls for a photographer (Gould) she first meets when he’s getting mugged. (Barbara Cook had the part in the 1967 Broadway original that also was directed by Arkin.)

In the second-season finale of Norman Lear’s All in the Family that aired in March 1972 and served as the pilot for Maude, Archie (Carroll O’Connor) and Edith (Jean Stapleton) head to Tuckahoe, New York, for the wedding of Carol Findlay (Rodd), who has a son from a previous marriage and is set to marry a Jewish guy. (Arthur’s ultra-liberal Maude Findlay is Edith’s cousin.)

But when Maude was picked up to series to begin its acclaimed six-season run the following September, Carol was played by Adrienne Barbeau, with Rodd reportedly unwilling to commit to a TV series.

Rodd did change her mind about television in 1976 when she agreed to portray the sister of Geraldine Brooks’ character in the Lear-developed, Coco-starring The Dumplings, but that NBC sitcom lasted just 11 episodes.

She returned for another Lear comedy, co-starring as the best friend and neighbor of Eileen Brennan’s character on ABC’s 13 Queens Boulevard. That midseason show, however, aired just nine episodes.

One of three kids, Rodd was born on July 8, 1938, in Lyons, Kansas, and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Wichita, Kansas. Her father, Charles, was an oil executive and banker and her mother, Rosetta, a pianist and church organist.

When she was 9, Rodd attended a local production of the musical Carousel and “was literally stagestruck and devoted unceasing efforts to build and practice her talents,” her family noted.

Just before graduating from East High School in Wichita in 1956, she persuaded her folks that the theater was the only career for her, so they paid the higher out-of-state tuition so she could attend Northwestern. After studying drama there under renowned teacher Alvina Krause, she acted with the Yale Repertory Theatre, paid the bills as a social worker and moved to New York.

In 1964, she starred as Dorothy in a televised stage production of The Wizard of Oz and made her Broadway debut as a replacement actress in the musical Oh, What a Lovely War.

She then worked off-Broadway in the musicals The Mad Show (replacing Lavin) in 1966 and Your Own Thing in ’68 and in the Broadway comedy Love in E Flat in ’67.

In addition to Little Murders, she also appeared on the big screen in 1971 opposite Candice Bergen and Peter Boyle in Herbert Ross’ T.R. Baskin (1971). Later, she appeared for director Jonathan Demme in Citizens Band (1977) and Last Embrace (1979).

Rodd recurred as the dentist wife of Charles Siebert’s doctor on CBS’ Trapper John, M.D. from 1982-86 and played the wife of Jack Weston’s dentist on the CBS adaptation of Alan Alda’s The Four Seasons in 1984.

Her TV résumé also included a return to Maude and other guest roles on Medical Center, Phyllis, M*A*S*H, Archie Bunker’s Place, Lou Grant, Laverne & Shirley, Murder, She Wrote, 21 Jump Street, ER, The Young and the Restless and Grey’s Anatomy.

She was back on Broadway in Herb Gardner’s I’m Not Rappaport in the 1980s; portrayed Golde opposite Theodore Bikel and Topol in national tours of Fiddler on the Roof in 1989 and 1994; and starred as literary celebrity Mary McCarthy alongside Dick Cavett in Hellman vs. McCarthy at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills in 2015.

Survivors include 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.

She was married to lawyer Dale Hagen from 1960 until their 1978 divorce.

 

“Sometimes I have wished I had a regular 9 to 5 job with more security. It can be drudgery, too. But I wouldn’t change,” she said in a 1979 interview. “You’re either totally crazy or pretty sane to stay in this business. I think I’m sane.”

Filmography

Film

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1971    Little Murders Patsy Newquist          

1971    T.R. Baskin     Dayle Wigoda

1972    VD Blues        Woman           

1977    Handle with Care        Portland Angel            Nominated — National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress

1979    Last Embrace  Adrian

1994    The Scout        Mrs. Lacy       

1997    Mulligans!       Madge Short

1998    The Scottish Tale        Sarah  

2000    Wanted            Mama Scrico  

2012    Parallax           Cassandra        Short

2015    Shining Seas   Maria   Short

2015    Broken: A Musical      Judge  

2016    Road to the Wall         Barb   

2019    American Christmas    Martha

Television

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1971    The New Dick Van Dyke Show         Linda   "Linda, Linda, Linda"

1972    Young Dr. Kildare       Dr. Nicole Keefe         "Chemistry of Anger"

1972    Medical Center           Connie "The Torn Man"

1972    All in the Family         Marilyn Sanders / Carol Traynor        "Mike's Mysterious Son", "Maude"

1975    Medical Center           Phyllis "The Captives"

1975    Barnaby Jones Nurse Marion Hollister           "Fatal Witness"

1976    The Dumplings           Stephanie         Regular role

1976    Good Heavens Joanne "Coffee, Tea, or Gloria"

1976    How to Break Up a Happy Divorce    Eve      TV film

1977    Phyllis Joanne Valenti "Dan's Ex"

1977    All's Fair         Vanessa Farr    "The Dick and Vanessa Show"

1977    Maude Leslie Perkins  "Walter's Temptation"

1978    M*A*S*H      Nurse Lorraine Anderson       "Temporary Duty"

1979    13 Queens Boulevard  Elaine Dowling           Main role

1979    ABC Afterschool Special        Barbara McKain         "A Movie Star's Daughter"

1979    Quincy, M.E.   Eleanor Janssen           "Sweet Land of Liberty"

1979    Lou Grant        Nancy Rhoden "Samaritan"

1980    Archie Bunker's Place Allison Flanders          "Home Again"

1980    Insight Pat McGinn / Kay Durban      "Unfinished Business", "God in the Dock"

1980–86          Trapper John, M.D.     E.J. Riverside  Recurring role

1981    Flamingo Road           Alice Kovacs  Recurring role

1981    Maggie            Miss Turley     "The School Conference"

1981    Bret Maverick Capt. Estelle Slater      "The Yellow Rose"

1982    Laverne & Shirley       Hillary "The Playboy Show"

1982    Lou Grant        Vivian Hamlin "Cameras"

1983    American Playhouse   Mary Goodwin           "Keeping On"

1984    Night Court     Nora Bowers Sedgwick          "Hi Honey, I'm Home"

1984    The Four Seasons        Claudia Zimmer          13 episodes

1984    Gimme a Break!          Off. Dwyer      "Carl's Delicate Moment"

1985    Highway to Heaven    Ann Haynes    "The Right Thing"

1985    Too Close for Comfort            Margaret Sinclair         "Off and Running"

1985    Between the Darkness and the Dawn Lilly     TV film

1987    Buck James     Sara Taylor      "A Question of Loyalty"

1986    Murder, She Wrote      Betty Fiddler   "Keep the Home Fires Burning"

1987–89          21 Jump Street            Margaret Hanson        "After School Special", "Christmas in Saigon", "Loc'd Out: Part 2"

1988    Murder, She Wrote      Madeline DeHaven     "Harbinger of Death"

1990    Hunter Miss Doyle      "Oh, the Shark Bites!"

1994    Renegade        Judge Joan Stephens   "Once Burned, Twice Chey"

1995    Home Improvement    Barbara Burton           "Doctor in the House"

1996    Sisters  Jane Wilcott Sumner   "Housecleaning"

2000    Family Law     Susan Lumberg           "Telling Lies"

2001–02          Family Law     Judge Paula Scott        "Recovery", "Celano v. Foster"

2003    Without a Trace           Sandra Pappish            "Moving On"

2012    Treelore Theatre          Granny Gilly   "Memory Lane Diner"

2013–14          Broken at Love           Grandma Lulu "Post-Match Analysis", "Sudden Death"

2014    Hellman v. McCarthy  Mary McCarthy          TV film

2017    The Young and the Restless    Myrna Bloodworth     2 episodes

2020    Grey's Anatomy          Gertie Schmitt Episode: "The Last Supper"

2023    Hunters            Helga Hansöm "The Home"