Zoneboy
10-16-2010, 11:02 PM
Link (http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-passings-20101017,0,2450172.story)
Janet MacLachlan, 77, an actress whose roles included a key supporting part in the 1972 film "Sounder" and guest appearances on such TV series as "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Cagney and Lacey," died Oct. 11 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a "cardiovascular incident" at her home in Silver Lake, said family spokeswoman Brandy Burton-Owens.
Besides playing the teacher who influences David Lee Morgan (played by Kevin Hooks) in "Sounder," MacLachlan also appeared opposite Jim Brown in "tick … tick … tick" (1970), James Earl Jones in "The Man" (1972) and Calvin Lockhart in "Halls of Anger" (1970).
On "Archie Bunker's Place," she played caustic housekeeper Polly Swanson. On "I Spy" in 1967, she played Bill Cosby's love interest Laya.
Born Aug. 27, 1933, in New York City, MacLachlan graduated from the City University of New York's Hunter College in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. She worked as an executive secretary in New York before launching her acting career with small stage parts. After a stint at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, she became a contract player for Universal Studios.
She had dozens of TV guest roles, starting in the mid-1960s with "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and continuing in such shows as "The Rockford Files" and "Murder She Wrote."
MacLachlan won a Los Angles-area Emmy Award for her 1981 performance in KCET's "Voices of Our People: In Celebration of Black Poetry."
She recently had served as grant committee chairman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
—Times staff and wire reports
Janet MacLachlan, 77, an actress whose roles included a key supporting part in the 1972 film "Sounder" and guest appearances on such TV series as "Archie Bunker's Place" and "Cagney and Lacey," died Oct. 11 at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles after suffering a "cardiovascular incident" at her home in Silver Lake, said family spokeswoman Brandy Burton-Owens.
Besides playing the teacher who influences David Lee Morgan (played by Kevin Hooks) in "Sounder," MacLachlan also appeared opposite Jim Brown in "tick … tick … tick" (1970), James Earl Jones in "The Man" (1972) and Calvin Lockhart in "Halls of Anger" (1970).
On "Archie Bunker's Place," she played caustic housekeeper Polly Swanson. On "I Spy" in 1967, she played Bill Cosby's love interest Laya.
Born Aug. 27, 1933, in New York City, MacLachlan graduated from the City University of New York's Hunter College in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. She worked as an executive secretary in New York before launching her acting career with small stage parts. After a stint at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, she became a contract player for Universal Studios.
She had dozens of TV guest roles, starting in the mid-1960s with "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and continuing in such shows as "The Rockford Files" and "Murder She Wrote."
MacLachlan won a Los Angles-area Emmy Award for her 1981 performance in KCET's "Voices of Our People: In Celebration of Black Poetry."
She recently had served as grant committee chairman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
—Times staff and wire reports