Oscar-Nominated Actress Joan Lorring Dead at 88

Joan Lorring

Joan Lorring, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the 1945 film “The Corn Is Green,” died on Friday in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. She was 88.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter Santha Sonenberg.

“The Corn Is Green” starred Bette Davis as an idealistic schoolteacher in a Welsh mining town. Ms. Lorring was nominated for an Oscar for her role as a scheming young woman, but lost to Anne Revere.

Joan Lorring was born Mary Magdalene Ellis in Hong Kong on April 17, 1926. She left for the United States with her mother in 1939 to escape the coming Japanese invasion.

The two settled in San Francisco, where Ms. Lorring started working in radio before going on to a career as a stage, screen and television performer. Her first film was the 1944 MGM production “Song of Russia.”

Ms. Lorring was also in two 1946 movies with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, “Three Strangers” and “The Verdict.”

She appeared on Broadway four times, most notably in “Come Back, Little Sheba,” with Shirley Booth, for which she won a Donaldson Award in 1950.

On television she was seen on the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” as well as on “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Love Boat” and other prime-time series. She was also in “The Star Wagon,” a 1966 PBS production starring Orson Bean that included Dustin Hoffman in the supporting cast, and a 1956 television version of “The Corn Is Green,” in which she repeated her Oscar-nominated role.

In addition to her daughter Santha, Ms. Lorring is survived by another daughter, Andrea Sonenberg, and two grandchildren. Her husband, Dr. Martin Sonenberg, an endocrinologist, died in 2011.

‘Brady Bunch’ actress, Ann B. Davis, dead at 88

The Emmy-winning actress took a tumble in her bathroom and hit her head early Saturday morning, sources told TMZ.

Ann B. Davis

Ann Branford Davis, the actress who played the sometimes wacky housekeeper who maintained law and order on “The Brady Bunch,” has died on Sunday morning after falling at her San Antonio home.

Episcopal Bishop William C. Frey, a close friend of Davis, said she she hit her head and suffered a subdural hematoma during a rough fall in a bathroom on Saturday and never woke up, according to CNN.

The couple Davis had been living with at a religious commune told TMZ she was a healthy 88-year-old and even walked downstairs to say goodnight before going to bed.

Her path as an actress took charge after a performance of "Oklahoma" featuring her brother, Evan, changed her ambitions while attending University of Michigan as a pre-med student.

The actress gained notoriety in the 1950s for her regular role as Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz on "The Bob Cummings Show" and won two Emmys.

She appeared in every episode of the Brady Bunch sitcom during its five-year run on the ABC network as a witty maid for the big household.

In a 2004 interview with the Archive of American Television, Davis looked toward her own life while creating a backstory for Alice.

"It was close to my family as Alice would ever get," Davis said.

She continued to act even when the Brady Bunch ended in 1974 and appeared in several reunions for the show.

She joined the Episcopal community and traveled the country with Frey for church activities.

Her church is arranging her funeral. Davis was born in Schenectady, New York on May 3, 1926.