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Thread: Georgia Engel, Gentle-Voiced 'Mary Tyler Moore' Actress, Is Dead at 70

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    Administrator fuego's Avatar
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    Georgia Engel, Gentle-Voiced 'Mary Tyler Moore' Actress, Is Dead at 70

    Just saw this. She died a few days ago.
    ______________



    Georgia Engel, whose distinctive voice and pinpoint comic timing made her a memorable part of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," on which she played Georgette Franklin, girlfriend and eventually wife of the buffoonish TV newsman Ted Baxter, died on Friday in Princeton, N.J. She was 70.

    John Quilty, her friend and executor, said the cause was undetermined because Ms. Engel, who was a Christian Scientist, did not consult doctors.

    Ms. Engel was twice nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on "Mary Tyler Moore," which she joined in 1972, during the show's third season.

    "It was only going to be one episode," she told The Toronto Star in 2007, "and I was just supposed to have a few lines in a party scene, but they kept giving me more and more to do."

    She had a high-pitched, innocent voice that, as one writer put it, "sounds like an angel has just sniffed some helium," and she used it expertly to contrast with the blustery Baxter (played by Ted Knight) and the usually levelheaded Mary Richards, Ms. Moore's character.

    She brought the voice — her real voice — and the comedic skills to other sitcoms after "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" ended in 1977, most notably "Everybody Loves Raymond," where she had a recurring role from 2003 to 2005. She was nominated for an Emmy for each season.

    "She could get a laugh on literally every line you gave her," Philip Rosenthal, the creator of "Raymond," said in a telephone interview. "I've never seen anything like it."

    Ms. Engel's castmates on "Mary Tyler Moore" included Betty White, with whom she would go on to work on "The Betty White Show" in the 1970s, and "Hot in Cleveland" this decade.

    "Georgia was one of a kind and the absolute best," Ms. White said on Monday through a spokeswoman.

    Although she was best known from television, Ms. Engel began her career onstage, reaching Broadway in 1969 as a replacement player near the end of the run of "Hello, Dolly!" She enjoyed a late-career resurgence in the theater, including a leading role last year in "Half Time," a musical staged at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey about 60-and-older dancers who perform at halftime of professional basketball games.

    Ben Brantley, reviewing that show in The New York Times, noted the echoes of Ms. Engel's "Mary Tyler Moore" breakthrough in her performance.

    "Here she is, some 40 years later and 69 years old, deploying that same perplexed stare and breathy little-girl voice," he wrote. "And she totally lights up the stage, while bringing bright new inflections to song and dance moves inspired by Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur and Run-DMC. I hadn't been conscious that I was missing Ms. Engel, but evidently I was."

    Georgia Bright Engel was born on July 28, 1948, in Washington to Benjamin Engel, an officer in the Coast Guard, and Ruth (Hendron) Engel. Her sister Robin Engel said that Ms. Engel had played Ado Annie — the girl who "can't say no" — in a school production of "Oklahoma!"

    "There was a talent scout from the Washington School of Ballet," Robin Engel said in a telephone interview, "and they offered her a scholarship."

    After graduating from the ballet school in 1967, she earned a theater degree at the University of Hawaii. She then landed a part in a Milos Forman movie, "Taking Off," whose screenwriters included John Guare. Once "Dolly" ended its run in 1970, that connection proved auspicious.

    "I was walking down the street one day after 'Dolly' closed to cash my unemployment check for $75," Ms. Engel told The Toronto Star years later, "when I ran into John and he told me I had to be in his play 'The House of Blue Leaves.' I was so thrilled, until I got my first paycheck. I was making $74, one dollar less than unemployment."

    The payoff came when Ms. Moore and her husband, the producer Grant Tinker, saw Ms. Engel in that play in Los Angeles. The role of Georgette soon followed...

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/o...ngel-dead.html

  2. #2
    Georgia Engel and Ted Knight were my favorites on the MTM show. They made quite the couple. Both passed away far too early ....

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    Senior Member Cardinal TT's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by fuego View Post
    . She was 70.

    John Quilty, her friend and executor, said the cause was undetermined because Ms. Engel, who was a Christian Scientist, did not consult doctors.
    Only 70...She would of lived longer if she didn't believe in Christian Science

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