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Emmy-nominated actress Shelley Fabares, best known for her roles in TV shows Coach and The Donna Reed Show, has died. She was 82.
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Fabares’ family confirmed her death in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, which said the actress died Saturday in Los Angeles after an undisclosed illness.
“To her family and friends, Shelley was a source of love, strength, laughter and comfort,” the statement said, per The Hollywoord Reporter. “She was a devoted wife, cherished stepmother, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, family member and loyal friend whose warmth, generosity, humour and grace made an enduring difference in the lives of everyone who knew her. She had a remarkable ability to make people feel welcomed, valued and cared for.”
Fabares rose to fame as a child actor on The Donna Reed Show, playing Mary Stone, the teen daughter of Donna Reed and Carl Betz on the popular ABC sitcom from 1958 to 1963.
As the musically talented Mary Stone, Fabares sang on the TV series, with her song Johnny Angel hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962. The song was the first single from Fabares’ debut solo album Shelley!
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Despite singing in three more albums, Fabares recalled in later interviews that she struggled with her music career.
“I literally cannot sing. So there’s a lot of overdubbing,” Fabares told The Hollywood Reporter about the success of Johnny Angel in a 1983 interview.
TV hiatus
Though The Donna Reed Show turned the 14-year-old Fabares into a household name, she left the show as a full-time cast member after the fourth season to pursue roles in movies.
Her first roles on the big screen included starring in three Elvis Presley films, Girl Happy (1965), Spinout (1966), and Clambake (1967).
In the ’70s and ’80s, she appeared on TV shows like The Rockford Files, Murder, She Wrote, McCloud, Cade’s County, and One Day at a Time.
Her role as the wife of James Caan’s Brian Piccolo, a Chicago Bears player battling terminal cancer, in the TV film Brian’s Song earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Return to sitcom
In 1989, a new generation of TV viewers was introduced to Fabares when she took on the role of Christine Armstrong in the ABC sitcom Coach.
Playing the newscaster girlfriend and later wife of Craig T. Nelson’s character, college football coach Hayden Fox, Fabares got to test her comedic chops for eight seasons, earning two Emmy nominations in the process.
Speaking to the Orlando Sentinel in 1989, Fabares said she was surprised to be cast in the role.
“Here was an intelligent, funny, well-written series,” she told the Sentinel. “And the people putting it on wanted me to play a very successful, ambitious woman in it.”
Fabares is survived by her husband, M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell, and her stepchildren.
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