Michele Lee, who performed Carole Bennet in “The Love Bug,” was born in 1942 and her first display screen look was in 1961, enjoying a nurse in an episode of hospital drama “Ben Casey.” Her early profession additionally featured a number of appearances in Broadway productions, and after a prolonged hiatus, she ultimately returned to the stage within the 2000s.
Lee solely had a handful of TV appearances and a single film position as Rosemary Pilkington within the musical comedy “Find out how to Reach Enterprise With out Actually Attempting” in her résumé when she landed the feminine lead position in “The Love Bug.” Whereas her character did not return for the sequels, Lee’s profession dramatically switched gears after the hit film. She appeared in lots of TV films and exhibits, notably enjoying a number of roles within the romantic comedy collection “The Love Boat” and showing as Vivian Feffer within the 2004 Ben Stiller-Jennifer Aniston comedy “Alongside Got here Polly.” Nonetheless, her most well-known efficiency is Karen MacKenzie, one of the distinguished characters within the long-running CBS cleaning soap opera “Knots Touchdown.” Sure TV characters had been recast in the course of the “Dallas” spin-off present’s prolonged 14-season tenure, however Lee stood her floor. The truth is, she and Ted Shackelford (who performed Gary Ewing) are the one two actors to look in each single one of many present’s 344 episodes and the two-part spin-off miniseries “Knots Touchdown: Again to the Cul-de-Sac.”
Whereas Lee is the one “The Love Bug” actor who’s nonetheless with us, it seems that she has retired from performing. Her closing on-screen position was a 2013 visitor look on the short-lived ABC comedy present “Find out how to Stay with Your Mother and father (For the Remainder of Your Life).”