Eileen Brennan, a feisty movie actress who showed the chops for both drama and salty comedy over a string of films in the '70s and '80s, died Sunday.
She was 80.
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Eileen Brennan died Sunday at the age of 80.
The daughter of a silent film actress, Brennan was a onetime Broadway ingenue ("Hello Dolly!") whose high cheekbones and curly mane first brought her big-screen attention in Peter Bogdanovich's beautifully elegiac "The Last Picture Show" (1971), as cafe waitress Genevieve.
She was also a bar gal in the road-movie picaresque "Scarecrow" (1971); a Depression-era madam in "The Sting" (1973) and a detective's tough moll in Neil Simon's mystery spoof "Murder by Death" (1976).
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Brennan makes her film debut in 1971's 'The Last Picture Show.'
Brennan earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for 1980's comedy "Private Benjamin," as the hard-as-nails Capt. Lewis, who suffers Goldie Hawn's pampered title character. A popular riff on the military-comedy genre, Brennan reprised Capt. Lewis for nearly two seasons on the CBS TV series adaptation, winning a supporting actress Emmy.
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Brennan started off her career on Broadway before moving into films.
She was also a wacky Mrs. Peacock in the board game-turned-movie "Clue" (1985), brought back Genevieve from "The Last Picture Show" for 1990's belated sequel "Texasville" and was a regular on "Will & Grace" as the acerbic acting teacher of Jack (Sean Hayes).
The steely Brennan famously was felled by a pair of near-debilitating accidents but got back to work afterward. In 1982, toward the end of "Private Benjamin's" brief run, Brennan was hit by a car crossing a Los Angeles street after dining with Hawn. Polly Holiday was brought in to play a new character on the show for several episodes before it was canceled in January 1983.
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Lesley Ann Warren, Colleen Camp and Eileen Brennan on the set of "Clue" in 1985.
The injuries from the accident resulted in Brennan being addicted to prescription painkillers, which, she told People magazine, required a stay at the Betty Ford clinic.
A few years later, while playing Miss Hannigan in a summer stock performance of "Annie" in Kansas City, Brennan took a tumble into the orchestra pit, breaking a leg.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Brennan had a mastectomy in 1990. Her final film was the comedy "Naked Run" in 2011.
