Stage and television actress Betty McGuire, who played grandmother Kate Malone on GROWING PAINS and later found a new audience as a retirement-community talk-show host, has died at 100.
“I’m a happy camper,” McGuire said in a 2019 NBC News interview about producing television in retirement. After decades of playing other people’s characters, she had something of her own to make: GABFEST, a talk show for the people around her.
McGuire died Oct. 8 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s campus in Woodland Hills, California, Variety reported. Actor and close family friend Keith Gerchak, whom the outlet identified as her power of attorney, confirmed her death.
Gerchak told The Hollywood Reporter that she died of natural causes. The news became public Oct. 18, 10 days after her death.
For GROWING PAINS viewers, McGuire was part of the Seaver family’s extended circle: Kate was the mother of Maggie Seaver, played by actress Joanna Kerns. Actor Gordon Jump played Kate’s husband, Ed, with McGuire appearing in 12 episodes between 1986 and 1991, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
That familiar grandmother role came long after her Broadway years. McGuire performed and understudied in the original productions of PLAIN AND FANCY in 1955–56, HAPPY HUNTING in 1956–57 and OH, CAPTAIN! in 1958, working alongside performers including Broadway stars Ethel Merman, Barbara Cook, Bea Arthur and Tony Randall.
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Her stage work also took her well beyond New York. She headlined MAME at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and performed in regional and touring productions of GYPSY, OLIVER! and HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING.
On television, her credits read like a trip through several decades of familiar programming. She appeared on COLUMBO, CHARLIE’S ANGELS, HILL STREET BLUES, MOONLIGHTING, STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE, ER and 7TH HEAVEN, among other series.
Her movie appearances included UP IN SMOKE and COMA, both released in 1978. In the former, she played Sister Mary Quacker; in the latter, a nurse in a medical thriller—a different corner of her career from the family sitcom role many viewers would recognize.
Offscreen, McGuire spent years volunteering as a receptionist and advocate for the Coalition for Economic Survival in Los Angeles. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter described her work helping low-income tenants who faced eviction.
The organization’s work centers on educating and organizing tenants, protecting their rights and preserving safe, affordable housing. That part of McGuire’s life involved people with an immediate practical need, not an audience waiting for a performance.
McGuire became a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Fund community in 2017. The nonprofit provides working and retired entertainment professionals with health and social services, including residential living.
There, she hosted and produced GABFEST for Channel 22, the campus television station. Rather than focusing on its celebrity residents, she highlighted the dreams and life stories of staff members, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
“That’s pretty wonderful.” That was McGuire’s assessment in the NBC interview after describing the opportunity to produce and interview people — a late-career chapter built around letting somebody else tell their story.
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