Betty McGuire, who was in the original Broadway companies of Plain and Fancy, Happy Hunting and Oh, Captain! in the 1950s before a long career on screen, died on October 8, 2026. She was 100.
Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on March 20, 1926, McGuire reached Broadway in January 1955 in Plain and Fancy, the musical about two New Yorkers adrift in Pennsylvania's Amish country, which ran into March 1956.
She went from there into the original company of Happy Hunting, which opened in December 1956, as an ensemble singer and understudy, and then into Oh, Captain! in February 1958. There she played several ensemble parts, understudied the role of Bobo and took it over herself for a week in July, shortly before the show closed.
Stage work outside New York followed, including Gypsy, before television took over most of her working life. She was a recurring presence as Kate Malone, Maggie Seaver's mother, on Growing Pains, and played Sister Mary Quacker in Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke (1978). Her guest credits ran from Columbo and Hill Street Blues to St. Elsewhere, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and ER.
