Actress Eleanor Parker Dead at 92 – Played the Baroness in THE SOUND OF MUSIC

She was so versatile, her biography was titled Woman of a Thousand Faces. A lovely, talented actress and a solid leading lady for three decades, Eleanor Parker was best known as the Baroness in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I remember her being terrorized by an army of killer ants opposite Charlton Heston in THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954), as the crippled wife of junkie Frank Sinatra in THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (1956) and especially climbing out of a hole with her head shaved in the prototype women’s prison film CAGED (1950). After her prime, she did a couple of schlocky roles, most notably THE OSCAR (1966) and EYE OF THE CAT (1969) where she pushed Gayle Hunnicut in her wheelchair into traffic. She worked mostly on television in her later years including the classic 1972 TV movie HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS in which Walter Brennan, believing his current wife (Julie Harris) is plotting to murder him, calls on his four daughters to join him over the Christmas holidays (played by Miss Parker, Jessica Walter, Jill Haworth, and Sally Field). Eleanor Parker died Monday in Palm Springs of complications of pneumonia at age 91.

                                  Eleanor Parker in THE SOUND OF MUSIC

From The Los Angeles Times:

Eleanor Parker, a versatile leading lady of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s who earned three Oscar nominations — none of which were for her best-known role as the baroness in “The Sound of Music” — died Monday in Palm Springs of complications of pneumonia. She was 91.

Read the rest HERE
http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-eleanor-parker-20131210,0,454195.story#ixzz2n4zx7VNg