General Hospital (GH) fans are mourning the death of another alum. Betty Ann Rees passed away this past Monday, June 3 at the age of 81.
She had been in a number of movies, appeared on several primetime television shows, and did a couple of soaps, including GH.
An actress, as well as an entrepreneur, Betty Anne had multiple sclerosis (MS) and had a “possible stroke” before passing away.
General Hospital Alum Betty Anne Rees – Her Acting Legacy
Rees was famous for her role on the sitcom My Three Sons, playing Fred MacMurray’s secretary in the show’s final 12th season from 1971 to 1972.
She was also well known for her appearances in movies like The Unholy Rollers in 1972 (produced by the iconic filmmaker, Roger Corman), as well as The Photographer and Sugar Hill in 1974.
In addition, Betty Anne guest starred on primetime television shows like the Mod Squad, Mannix, The F.B.I., The Incredible Hulk, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco, S.W.A.T., and Adam-12.
As per a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Reese had roles on the daytime drama The Doctors and appeared in “early episodes” of GH.
General Hospital – Alum Betty Anne Rees – Her Life
On June 8, Kathleen Loucks, Rees’s niece, told The Hollywood Reporter that her aunt was given an MS diagnosis in the early ‘90s.
More recently, the actress had fallen a number of times and possibly had a stroke right before her passing.
Elizabeth Ann Rees was born on April 14, 1943, in Shaker Heights, Ohio, attending the Shaker Heights High School, and then moving on to the University of Miami. She also was a part of the Pasadena Playhouse.
On behalf of everyone here, we send our condolences to Betty Anne Rees’s friends, family, colleagues, and fans. Stay tuned to CTS for the best soap opera updates and news.
Rees died Monday at her home in Hemet, California, after a series of falls and a possible stroke, her niece, Kathleen Loucks, told The Hollywood Reporter. She also was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s.
The Ohio native played Janet Ingram, the secretary for Fred MacMurray’s Steve Douglas, on the last of My Three Sons’ 12 seasons in 1971-72. (Abby Dalton was Janet on an episode three years earlier.)
In The Unholy Rollers (1972), directed by Vernon Zimmerman, Rees portrayed Mickey Martinez, a star of the Los Angeles Avengers roller derby team who does not get along with popular new player Karen Walker (1970 Playboy Playmate of the Year Claudia Jennings).
The film, executive produced by Roger Corman and edited by Martin Scorsese, was rushed into production to take advantage of the publicity generated by MGM’s big-budget roller derby movie, Kansas City Bomber, starring Raquel Welch.
Paul Maslansky’s cult blaxploitation film Sugar Hill (1974) starred Marki Bey as Diana “Sugar” Hill, a woman who enlists a voodoo priestess (Zara Cully of The Jeffersons) to bring back long-dead African slaves to take revenge on the Southern mob boss (Robert Quarry) responsible for her fiancé’s death.
As Celeste, the mobster’s racist girlfriend, Rees gets into a fight in a bar with Sugar and (spoiler alert) gets carried off by the zombies at the end.
Elizabeth Anne Rees was born on April 14, 1943, in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her father, James, was an attorney who owned racehorses, and her mother, Margaret, was a homemaker.
She graduated from Shaker Heights High School in 1961 and attended the University of Miami before studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse and appearing on the daytime soap operas General Hospital and The Doctors. In New York, she roomed with future Benson star Caroline McWilliams, later the wife of Michael Keaton.
Rees showed up on a 1966 episode of the ABC series Shane, starring David Carradine, then made her way onto two films released the following year, The Cool Ones and Banning.
Rees went on to appear on such other shows as Adam-12, Medical Center, Mannix, Mod Squad, The F.B.I., Police Woman, S.W.A.T., The Streets of San Francisco, Lou Grant, Barnaby Jones and, in 1978 for her last credit, The Incredible Hulk.
Later, she ran Gloria Marshall Figure Salons, designed kitchens and was said to have invented a goofy ’80s gift for bosses called the “Executive Teething Ring.”
In addition to her niece, survivors include her sister, Barbara; her nephew, Brian; and her cats, Honey Bear and Lovey, who need a home. (Please email Loucks at [email protected] if you can help.)
Rees never married, but her niece said she had a romance in the 1960s with Art Modell, who had recently acquired the NFL’s Cleveland Browns
