Verna Bloom, perhaps most widely known as the libidinous wife of Dean Wormer (John Vernon, 1932-2005) in Animal House (1978), died Wednesday, January 9, in Bar Harbor, Maine, of complications of dementia, THR reports.
She was 80.
The actress made her Broadway debut in 1967's The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis De Sade.
Bloom's movie debut was auspicious — a starring role in Medium Cool (1969), playing a single mom who becomes a part of the chaos of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Along with her perfectly over-the-top Animal House performance, she was in High Plains Drifter (1973), After Hours (1985) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). She also appeared in the TV movies Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975) and Contract on Cherry Street (1977), with Frank Sinatra (1915-1998).
Married to critic and writer Jay Cocks (b. 1944) for nearly 50 years, she is survived by him and her son, Sam.
