Actress Betty Garrett Passes Away At 91

Betty Garrett, a comedic actress who had good times and bad in Hollywood in a 65-year show biz career, has died. She was 91.

Garrett was a familiar face on television, film and on Broadway. She also founded a nonprofit theater in North Hollywood, Theater West, and taught an acting class there as late as last week, her family told the Los Angeles Times.

She had recent roles on “Becker,” “Boston Public” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” She also had recurring roles in several 1970s sit-coms, including as liberal neighbor Irene Lorenzo on “All In The Family” and as landlady Edna Babish on “Lavenre and Shirley.”

Garrett’s career started on the New York stage, after she went to Broadway in 1936. She got a contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1947 and starred opposite Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in “On The Town.”

“I was in on the end of what they called the golden years,” Garrett told the Los Angeles Times in 1979. “I met (Clark) Gable and (Spencer) Tracy, and of course, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra.

“To grow up with Frank being your idol and then suddenly being his leading lady is an extraordinary fantasy lived out.”

But there were suspicions that she and her husband, actor Larry Parks, were leftists, and Garrett landed on the blacklist. Her career was in shambles for two decades, until situation comedies were willing to take a chance on her in the 1970s.

The Times reported that Garrett had appeared in a one-woman show, and the Los Angeles premiere of Noel Coward’s “Waiting In The Wings,” in recent years.

She is survived by two sons, composer Garrett Parks, and actor Andrew Parks.

Continuing the family tradition, her granddaughter, Madison, sang in a high school opera just hours after her grandmother passed away, The Times reported.

No services have been set. The Hollywood Historic Trust scheduled a flower-placing at Garrett’s star for 2 p.m. today at 6706 Hollywood Blvd.