WILL & Grace actress Shelley Morrison who played Karen’s long-suffering maid in the show has died from heart failure aged 83.
The TV star died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA on Sunday after a brief illness, her publicist confirmed.
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Morrison played Rosario Salazar, a maid from El Salvador, in the original run of Will & Grace from 1999 to 2006.
The cast for the much-loved sitcom won a Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a comedy series.
Morrison’s character was originally written for a single episode.
But she proved so popular in her interactions with co-star Megan Mullally – who played Karen Walker – that she would appear in 68 episodes.
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“Rosario is one of my all-time favorite characters,” Morrison said recently, according to a statement and biography announcing her death.
“She reminds me a lot of my own mother, who loved animals and children, but she would not suffer fools.
“It is very significant to me that we were able to show an older, Hispanic woman who is bright and smart and can hold her own.”
Before Will and Grace, Morrison was best known for playing Sister Sixto on The Flying Nun alongside Sally Field from 1967 to 1970.
She guest-starred on dozens of television series starting in the early 1960s, including The Fugitive, L.A. Law and Murder, She Wrote.
Most recently, she voiced a character, Mrs Portillo, on the Disney animated series Handy Manny.
Born Rachel Mitrani to Jewish parents from Spain in the Bronx, New York, in 1936, Morrison spoke primarily Spanish as a child.
She was cast primarily as Latina characters, but she played a range of ethnicities in theater, television and film.
Her movie roles put her in casts with Hollywood’s biggest stars of several eras.
She appeared with Dean Martin in 1968s How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life, with Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl the same year, with Gregory Peck in 1969s Mackennas Gold.
Morrison is survived by her husband of more than 40 years, Walter Dominguez.
