Gloria Stroock, who performed Rock Hudson’s secretary on McMillan & Spouse and appeared in movies together with Enjoyable With Dick and Jane, The Competitors and The Day of the Locust, has died. She was 99.
Stroock died Could 5 of pure causes in Tucson, Arizona, her daughter, Kate Stern, instructed The Hollywood Reporter.
Stroock was married to Emmy-winning writer-producer Leonard B. Stern (Abbott and Costello within the International Legion, The Phil Silvers Present, The Honeymooners, Get Sensible and rather more) from 1956 till his dying in 2011 at age 87.
Her late youthful sister was Geraldine Brooks, a Tony nominee and Warner Bros. contract participant (Cry Wolf, Embraceable You).
Stroock recurred as Maggie, the secretary of Hudson’s San Francisco police commissioner Stewart McMillan, on the ultimate three seasons (1974-77) of McMillan & Spouse, the NBC collection created by her husband.
She portrayed the spouse of Richard Dysart’s artwork director in John Schlesinger’s The Day of the Locust (1975), starring Donald Sutherland and Karen Black; the spouse of Ed McMahon’s embezzling boss in Ted Kotcheff’s Enjoyable With Dick and Jane (1977), starring George Segal and Jane Fonda; and the mom of Richard Dreyfuss’ struggling pianist in Joel Oliansky’s The Competitors (1980).
Gloria Jane Stroock was born in Manhattan on July 10, 1924. Her father, Jimmie, owned the Brooks Costume and Uniform Co., then the foremost maker of theatrical costumes in New York. Her mom, Bianca, designed fashionable garments for the stage. Thus, she and her sister went to Broadway openings, the Ziegfeld Follies and the circus on a regular basis.
Whereas attending Camp Fernwood in Poland, Maine, Stroock she wrote a music that campers nonetheless sing in the present day, her household famous.
She made it to Broadway in 1945, showing in Oh, Brother and as Meg in a revival of Little Ladies; labored on such TV anthology reveals as Kraft Theater, Starlight Theater and Studio One; modeled for Look and Life magazines; and sat for portraits painted by famend artist Eugene Speicher.
She got here to Los Angeles after marrying Stern in a ceremony on the St. Regis Resort in New York. (Phil Silvers was an usher of their marriage ceremony occasion.)
Stroock performed Rose Kennedy within the 1977 ABC telefilm Younger Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy and in addition confirmed up on episodes of Mama, Martin Kane, The Snoop Sisters, Baretta, Operation Petticoat and Archie Bunker’s Place and in Kotcheff’s 1983 movie Unusual Valor.
As a member of Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, she starred in Driving Miss Daisy and different performs for 35 years. Her memoir, Forged of Characters, was printed when she was 93, and she or he had a solo exhibition of her sculpting work at 95.
Gloria Stroock
Courtesy of Kate Stern
“A chic, gracious and radiant girl, Gloria disliked freeways and unhealthy grammar, by no means met a bar of darkish chocolate she didn’t love and had an uncanny reminiscence for music lyrics,” her household wrote.
“When requested in her mid-90s to what she owed her longevity, she mentioned, ‘I get up day by day singing and go to mattress the identical means, and that places me in an excellent temper for the day and provides me nice goals at night time.’”
She died on the residence of her son, Emmy-nominated movie editor Michael Stern (The X-Recordsdata, Angel, Orange Is the New Black).
Along with her son and daughter, survivors embody her daughter-in-law, Laura; grandchildren Ryan and Dylan; and great-grandchildren Gabriella, Jackson, Grayson, Noir and J.J.
Brooks, 15 months youthful than Stroock, died in 1977 at age 51 of a coronary heart assault whereas present process remedy for most cancers. She was married to Emmy-winning screenwriter-producer Herb Sargent (co-creator of “Weekend Replace” on Saturday Evening Stay) and novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg.