A well-known TV actress has died at her Chicago home at the age of 95.
Lynn Hamilton, who had recurring roles on The Waltons and Sanford & Son, died Thursday, June 19, at the age of 95, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Hamilton played Redd Foxx’s character’s girlfriend Donna Harris on Sanford & Son, and the neighbor Ms. Verdie Grant Foster on The Waltons. Additionally, she starred as matriarch Vivian Potter on the NBC soap opera Generations alongside Kelly Rutherford, Joan Pringle, Jonelle Allen and the late Kristoff St. John. Hamilton also starred on the short-lived primetime drama Dangerous Women alongside Katherine Justice and Casper Van Dien.
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In later years, Hamilton had recurring roles on 227, Sunset Beach and The Practice. She also appeared on such shows as Cold Case, Judging Amy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, NYPD Blue, Murphy Brown and The Golden Girls.
In a 2009 interview, Hamilton said that the team behind Sanford & Son was “so impressed” with her day-player role as a landlord that they wrote the part of Foxx’s girlfriend just for her.
“A month or two later, they decided to give Fred Sanford a girlfriend,” said Hamilton, adding, “[They] needed somebody dignified opposite him; he was aware of his earthliness, shall we say.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hamilton was born April 25, 1930, in Yazoo City, Mississippi, but her family moved to Chicago when she was 4. She moved to New York in 1956 and appeared on Broadway in Only in America, The Cool World, Face of a Hero and Tambourines to Glory. She joined the Seattle Repertory Theatre in 1966.
Hamilton is preceded in death by her husband, Frank Jenkins, who was a poet and playwright. They married in 1964 and were together until his death in 2014.
