Stage, screen and TV actress Gwen Van Dam, who died age 96 on Dec. 19, had an enviable career. She played mostly bits and walk-ons and never became a “name,” but she worked steadily from the 1950s through last year. Her credits were breathtaking in movies (Husbands, Kentucky Fried Movie, Coming Home, Halloween, Stir Crazy, Burlesque) and TV (Dark Shadows, Maude, Days of Our Lives, Moonlighting, Gilmore Girls, Angie Tribeca, Grace and Frankie), and her stage career (mostly in L.A.) was locally lauded. She was married to actor Bill Smillie, who died in 2003. Her family wrote that when she was offered a Columbia contract in the ’50s, “Fellow student Montgomery Clift advised Van Dam: ‘Are you sure you want to move to Hollywood? It could destroy you.’ Van Dam turned down the Columbia deal. She later admitted it was the worst mistake of her career.” It may not have been as she certainly had a longer and happier career than Monty’s.
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