Stage, screen and TV actress Marcia Rodd, 87, died on Dec. 27. The Kansas-born Rodd moved to New York in the 1960s, and appeared in such on- and off-Broadway shows as The Mad Show, Oh, What a Lovely War, Love in E Flat, The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, I’m Not Rappaport, and Shelter. Rodd had Jessica Walter/Elizabeth Ashley sharp, dark good looks, and found much work on TV: she was the original Carol to Bea Arthur’s Maude, also showing up on Medical Center, Phyllis, Lou Grant, Laverne & Shirley, Murder She Wrote, Night Court, 21 Jump Street, The Young and the Restless, and Grey’s Anatomy. Like Walter and Ashley, her film career was sparse: Little Murders, T.R. Baskin, The Scout, and, in 2023, Dante’s Hotel. Rodd once said that “Sometimes I have wished I had a regular 9 to 5 job with more security. It can be drudgery, too. But I wouldn’t change. You’re either totally crazy or pretty sane to stay in this business. I think I’m sane.”
