Mariclare Costello obit

Mariclare Costello Dies: ‘The Waltons’ Actor Was 90

 

She was not on the list.

Mariclare Costello, who played the devoted schoolteacher Rosemary Hunter on The Waltons, a free-spirited hippie-turned-vampire in the 1971 cult horror film Let’s Scare Jessica To Death and appeared in nine Broadway productions during the 1960s, died Friday, April 17, in Brooklyn, her family has announced. She was 90.

Married to M*A*S*H actor Allan Arbus until his death in 2013, Costello received her master’s in theater and education from Catholic University, was an original member of Lincoln Center Repertory Company and a lifetime member of The Actors Studio.

Born February 3, 1936, in Peoria, Illinois, Costello moved to New York City after graduate school and landed roles both Off Broadway and on Broadway. Her Broadway debut came in 1964 with a role in Arthur Miller’s After the Fall opposite Jason Robards. Eight Broadway credits would follow, including But For Whom Charlie (1964), The Changeling (1964), Tartuffe (1965), Danton’s Death (1965), The Country Wife (1965), Lovers and Other Strangers (1968), A Patriot for Me (1969) and Harvey, with James Stewart and Helen Hayes (1970).

Costello made her film debut in 1967’s The Tiger Makes Out starring Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, then appeared on several TV series including the 1969 cop show N.Y.P.D. before being cast two years later in Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, a moody horror film starring Zohra Lampert as Jessica, a woman just released from a mental hospital who thinks she might be relapsing when ghostly things begin to happen. Costello played the pivotal role of a hippie who takes up with Jessica and her husband only to become a vampire. Among the film’s most memorable scenes is the undead Costello emerging slowly from a lake to attack the title character.

Subsequent credits include the acclaimed 1974 TV movie The Execution of Private Slovik in which she played the wife of Martin Sheen’s title character. In 1980 she played the sympathetic sister-in-law of Mary Tyler Moore’s grieving mother in Robert Redford’s Ordinary People.

Her many TV credits included episodic roles throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s in, among others, Ironside, Kojak, Little House on the Prairie, Lou Grant, Murder She Wrote, Santa Barbara, Chicago Hope, Judging Amy and, in the early 2000s, TV movie Shadow of the Blair Witch and series Providence.

Costello was a series regular on the single-season 1977 CBS drama The Fitzpatricks, but she is probably best remembered for her recurring role over five seasons (1972-1977) of CBS’ hit family drama The Waltons. She played Miss Rosemary Hunter, the kindly school teacher who encourages a young John-Boy Walton (Richard Thomas) to become a writer. The character later married the town’s preacher played by a pre-Three’s Company John Ritter.

She is survived by her daughter, the stage director Arin Arbus, and Arin’s partner, the playwright Ethan Lipton; granddaughter Bird; stepdaughters Amy and Doon; six nieces and a nephew.

A funeral service will be held in New York City, with burial and remembrance in Peoria.

 

Filmography

Year     Title     Role     Notes

1967    The Tiger Makes Out  Rosi    

1969    N.Y.P.D.          Eloise Hendrix            S2.E16 - "The Attacker"

1970    Pound  Honky Killer's Wife   

1970    Storefront Lawyers     Nancy Collins S1.E3 - "Murph Collins vs. Tomorrow"

1971    Let's Scare Jessica to Death    Emily/Abigail 

1972    Ironside           Mary Ellen Wells        S6.E2 - "The Savage Sentry"

1972–77          The Waltons    Rosemary Hunter/Fordwick    15 episodes

1974    Kojak  Diane Gordon S1.E13 - "Death Is Not a Passing Grade"

1974    After the Fall   Louise TV film based on Arthur Miller's play by the same name

1974    The Execution of Private Slovik         Private Slovik's wife Antoinette          NBC TV film

1974    The Gun          Beryl Strauss   ABC Movie of the Week

1975    Barnaby Jones Ruth Granger  S3.E21 - "The Deadlier Species"

1975    Harry O           Emily Weston  S1.E15 - "For the Love of Money"

1977    This Is the Life            Ann     Episode: "Stranger at the Door"

1977    Raid on Entebbe          Gabrielle Krieger       

1977–78          The Fitzpatricks           Maggie Fitzpatrick      13 episodes - regular cast

1979    The Incredible Hulk    Kay Wallace    S2.E18 - "No Escape"

1979–81          Lou Grant        Maxine Kintner/Louise Larsen           2 episodes

1980    Ordinary People          Audrey Butler

1980    Little House on the Prairie (TV series)           Helen Crane   

1981    Ragtime           Emma Goldman          (workprint edit only)

1981    Coward of the County Emma  Television Movie

1982    Hart to Hart     Anita Boyer    S3.E18 - "Deep in the Hart of Dixieland"

1982    Fame   Mrs. Mendenhall         S3.E9 - "Secrets"

1983    Nightmares      Adele Cooney (segment "The Bishop of Battle")

1984    The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension       Senator Cunningham 

1984    Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story        Jane Bladow    NBC TV film

1985    Heart of a Champion: The Ray Mancini Story           Ellen Mancini  CBS TV film

1986    Murder, She Wrote      Cassie Latham Burns  S2.E15 - "Powder Keg"

1990    In the Heat of the Night          Darlene            S3.E14 - "December Days"

1990    Santa Barbara  Sister Lillian    2 episodes

1993    Indecent Proposal        David's Mother           

1997    High Tide                    S3.E21 - "Ghost Story"

1998    Chicago Hope Mother Mary Catherine          S4.E13 - "Memento Mori"

1999    Judging Amy   Dr. Singer        S1.E7 - "An Impartial Bias"

2002    Providence      Helen Norris    S4.E21 - "Smoke and Mirrors"

2011    Assisted Loving (video short) Pearl