Screen and stage actress Ann Wedgeworth died on Thursday, November 16, 2017 at the age of 83. Her daughter Dianna Martin announced that she passed in a nursing home near her home in New York City following a long illness.

Wedgeworth was best known for her story arc on Three’s Company as Lana Shields, an older woman interested in her young neighbor Jack; and as Merleen Elldridge during four seasons of Evening Shade.

Born in Abilene, Texas in 1934, she graduated from Highland Park High School. She earned a drama degree from Southern Methodist University then moved to New York City to pursue a career in theater.

Her Broadway debut was in Make a Million in 1958. She won a Tony Award for her role in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two in ’78 and appeared in Steel Magnolias in ’89.

Her TV and film debut came in 1956’s The Edge of the Night. She was in several soap operas like Another World and One Life to Live, and appeared on Filthy Rich, The Twilight Zone, and Roseanne. On film, she was in Scarecrow with Gene Hackman, Bang the Drum Slowly with Robert De Niro, and played Patsy Cline’s mom in Sweet Dreams. Her final film role was in 2006 in The Hawk is Dying.