Shelley Fabares‘ family has confirmed the cause of her death last week. Relatives told People that that longtime TV and film actor died of pneumonia, after having been diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. She’d had a liver transplant 26 years ago.
Fabares died August 22 at 82.
Born on January 19, 1944, in Santa Monica, the two-time Emmy winner had a long career in Hollywood starting with guest stints on mid-1950s TV shows before landing a series-regular role on The Donna Reed Show that spanned nearly 200 episodes over five seasons from 1958-63. She then would appear in a number of films starring Elvis Presley before returning to TV work.
Fabares landed guest-starring roles in dozens of series over the next two decades including The Twilight Zone, The Incredible Hulk, Fantasy Island, Mork & Mindy, The Love Boat, Newhart and a recurring turn on One Day at a Time. She also played the wife of Brian Piccolo in the landmark 1971 telefilm Brian’s Song.
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Her next regular TV gig would be role for which she is most famous. Fabares played Christine Armstrong, the TV reporter love girlfriend and later wife of Craig T. Nelson’s titular star on the long-running ABC sitcom Coach. She earned back-to-back Emmy noms in for her role as Christine Armstrong in 1993 and 1994 during the show’s nine-season, 200-episode run.
Her last credits were voice roles playing Superman’s adoptive mom Martha Kent in episodes of Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League and Superman: Brainiac Attacks.