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Gloria Henry — most famous for playing the mom character on the old ‘Dennis the Menace’ show — has died.
The veteran actress passed away Saturday, just one day after her 98th birthday … this according to her daughter, Erin Ellwood, who broke the sad news on Instagram. After posting some celebratory shots of her mother’s milestone year, she said she’d died the next day.
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Erin threw up a photo of her mom posing at the Colette Miller angel wings mural in Hollywood, writing … “She’s flying now, free of her body. She left on a countdown 4 3 2 1 @ 3:40pm. She was such an incredible woman in so many ways. This last year with her has been beautiful and heartbreaking. Thank you all for following me and supporting me on this journey – this beautiful land mine. Goodbye Momma, I love your guts forever ❤️”
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On Friday, Erin posted a sweet birthday card Gloria was sent from cartoonist Marcus Hamilton — the guy famous for those Dennis the Menace cartoons that have appeared in newspapers for years now. He customized it for her, thanking for being the best “mom” Dennis could ask for. Erin says it made Gloria’s day to see it.
Of course, Gloria played Alice Mitchell — the titular character’s mom — on the CBS black and white sitcom for all four seasons from 1959 through 1963, having starred in 146 episodes. She was the epitome of the white picket fence parent … often playing peacemaker with her rambunctious boy and his nemesis/neighbor, Mr. Wilson.
While she’s perhaps best-known from ‘DTM’ … Gloria had a long-running career in TV and film that dates back to the ’40s, when she starred in B-films like “Adventures in Silverado,” “The Arkansas Swing,” “Johnny Alegro” and many others.
She made a splash in the ’50s as Michelle Malone in ‘The Files of Jeffrey Jones’ … and went on to have supporting roles in ‘Mr. & Mrs. North,’ ‘My Little Margie,’ ‘Perry Mason,’ ‘Broken Arrow,’ ‘The Farmer’s Daughter,’ ‘The Brady Brides,’ ‘Simon & Simon,’ ‘Silver Spoons,’ ‘Dallas’ and countless other famous series. All in all, Gloria has 65 acting credits to her name.
She’ll always be remembered as Dennis’ sweet maternal presence though. Gloria was 98.
RIP