{"id":3987,"date":"2026-01-08T10:10:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viraltales.us\/?p=3987"},"modified":"2026-01-08T10:10:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:10:57","slug":"marcia-rodd-actress-in-little-murders-and-broadways-last-of-the-red-hot-lovers-dies-at-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/viraltales.us\/?p=3987","title":{"rendered":"Marcia Rodd, Actress in \u2018Little Murders\u2019 and Broadway\u2019s \u2018Last of the Red Hot Lovers,\u2019 Dies at 87"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marcia Rodd, the Tony-nominated actress who starred opposite Elliott Gould in the Jules Feiffer black comedy Little Murders and originated the role of Bea Arthur\u2019s daughter in the pilot for Maude, died Dec. 27, her family announced. She was 87.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rodd\u2019s first love was the stage, and she portrayed the pot-smoking starlet Bobbi opposite Linda Lavin, James Coco and Doris Roberts in Neil Simon\u2019s 1969-71 hit Broadway comedy Last of the Red Hot Lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his review in The New York Times, Clive Barnes wrote that Rodd supplied \u201ca naive, little-girl charm to give an edge of innocence to her [character\u2019s] deprived depravity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She received her Tony nomination for best actress in a musical in 1973 for her turn as a deserted wife in the kooky Austin Pendleton-directed Shelter but lost out to Glynis Johns for A Little Night Music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Little Murders (1971), directed by Alan Arkin, Rodd starred as the predatory Patsy Newquist, a New York interior designer with an eccentric family \u2014 Vincent Gardenia and Elizabeth Wilson play her parents, Jon Korkes her brother \u2014 who falls for a photographer (Gould) she first meets when he\u2019s getting mugged. (Barbara Cook had the part in the 1967 Broadway original that also was directed by Arkin.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second-season finale of Norman Lear\u2019s All in the Family that aired in March 1972 and served as the pilot for Maude, Archie (Carroll O\u2019Connor) and Edith (Jean Stapleton) head to Tuckahoe, New York, for the wedding of Carol Findlay (Rodd), who has a son from a previous marriage and is set to marry a Jewish guy. (Arthur\u2019s ultra-liberal Maude Findlay is Archie\u2019s cousin.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when Maude was picked up to series to begin its acclaimed six-season run the following September, Carol was played by Adrienne Barbeau, with Rodd reportedly unwilling to commit to a TV series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodd did change her mind about television in 1976 when she agreed to portray the sister of Geraldine Brooks\u2019 character in the Lear-developed, Coco-starring The Dumplings, but that NBC sitcom lasted just 11 episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She returned for another Lear comedy, co-starring as the best friend and neighbor of Eileen Brennan\u2019s character on ABC\u2019s 13 Queens Boulevard. That midseason show, however, aired just nine episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of three kids, Rodd was born on July 8, 1938, in Lyons, Kansas, and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Wichita, Kansas. Her father, Charles, was an oil executive and banker and her mother, Rosetta, a pianist and church organist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she was 9, Rodd attended a local production of the musical Carousel and \u201cwas literally stagestruck and devoted unceasing efforts to build and practice her talents,\u201d her family noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before graduating from East High School in Wichita in 1956, she persuaded her folks that the theater was the only career for her, so they paid the higher out-of-state tuition so she could attend Northwestern. After studying drama there under renowned teacher Alvina Krause, she acted with the Yale Repertory Theatre, paid the bills as a social worker and moved to New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1964, she starred as Dorothy in a televised stage production of The Wizard of Oz and made her Broadway debut as a replacement actress in the musical Oh, What a Lovely War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She then worked off-Broadway in the musicals The Mad Show (replacing Lavin) in 1966 and Your Own Thing in \u201968 and in the Broadway comedy Love in E Flat in \u201967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Little Murders, she also appeared on the big screen in 1971 opposite Candice Bergen and Peter Boyle in Herbert Ross\u2019 T.R. Baskin (1971). Later, she appeared for director Jonathan Demme in Citizens Band (1977) and Last Embrace (1979).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodd recurred as the dentist wife of Charles Siebert\u2019s doctor on CBS\u2019 Trapper John, M.D. from 1982-86 and played the wife of Jack Weston\u2019s dentist on the CBS adaptation of Alan Alda\u2019s The Four Seasons in 1984.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her TV r\u00e9sum\u00e9 also included a return to Maude and other guest roles on Medical Center, Phyllis, MA<\/em>S*H, Archie Bunker\u2019s Place, Lou Grant, Laverne & Shirley, Murder, She Wrote, 21 Jump Street, ER, The Young and the Restless and Grey\u2019s Anatomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was back on Broadway in Herb Gardner\u2019s I\u2019m Not Rappaport in the 1980s; portrayed Golde opposite Theodore Bikel and Topol in national tours of Fiddler on the Roof in 1989 and 1994; and starred as literary celebrity Mary McCarthy alongside Dick Cavett in Hellman vs. McCarthy at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survivors include her partner of 25 years, William Lewis; her brother, Stephen; her brother-in-law, Roger; her nieces, Laurie, Julie and Farrell; and her nephew, Zachary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was married to lawyer Dale Hagen from 1960 until their 1978 divorce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes I have wished I had a regular 9 to 5 job with more security. It can be drudgery, too. But I wouldn\u2019t change,\u201d she said in a 1979 interview. \u201cYou\u2019re either totally crazy or pretty sane to stay in this business. I think I\u2019m sane.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marcia Rodd, the Tony-nominated actress who starred opposite Elliott Gould in the Jules Feiffer black comedy Little Murders and originated the role of Bea Arthur\u2019s daughter in the pilot for Maude, died…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting-stories"],"yoast_head":"\nMarcia Rodd, Actress in \u2018Little Murders\u2019 and Broadway\u2019s \u2018Last of the Red Hot Lovers,\u2019 Dies at 87 - Viral Tales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/viraltales.us\/?p=3987\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marcia Rodd, Actress in \u2018Little Murders\u2019 and Broadway\u2019s \u2018Last of the Red Hot Lovers,\u2019 Dies at 87 - 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