August 4, 2023
Shockingly, fabulous babe and underrated actor Sharon Farrell apparently died in May at 82 — and her death went unreported.
As ExtraTV reports, a family dispute may have kept the sad news hidden from the world for months, but her sister has confirmed on Facebook that Farrell died at L.A. Downtown Medical Center on May 15, 2023, after an extended period in care facilities.
Farrell, as her 2013 memoir was titled, was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on December 24, 1940.
After a stint as a ballerina with the American Ballet Theater, she made her first film in 1959, the low-budget thriller Kiss Her Goodbye.
Some of her other films in the early part of her career included 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), Spy with My Face (1965), A Lovely Way to Die (1968), Marlowe (1969) and The Love Machine (1971).
Her most famous works were undoubtedly the mutant-baby horror classic It's Alive (1974), the Chuck Norris-David Carradine drama Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) and the '80s comedies Night of the Comet (1984) and Can't Buy Me Love (1987),
She was all over television, where I personally feel her talents were better utilized. In particular, you have to see her in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "Final Performance" from 1965, which has a twist ending more unsettling even than most Hitchcock TV episodes.
Other TV: Naked City (1961); "The Matched Pearl," an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1962); 12 episodes of Saints and Sinners (1962-1963); Wagon Train (1962 & 1964); My Favorite Martian (1963); Gunsmoke (1963 & 1964); The Beverly Hillbillies (1965); The Fugitive (1965); Ben Casey (1963-1965); I Dream of Jeannie (1965); The Virginian (1967); The Wild Wild West (1968); Marcus Welby, M.D. (1972); Love, American Style (1974); The Six Million Dollar Man (1974); Police Woman (1974 & 1976); Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1975), one of her best performances; Mrs. Columbo (1979); Hawaii Five-O (1977-1980); more than 80 episodes of The Young and the Restless (1991-1997); Matlock (1992); JAG (1999); and many, many more.
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER GUEST STARS!
She actually came out of retirement for two episodes of the series Broken at Love (2013 & 2014).
The record shows that Farrell was married and divorced four times, and that her first marriage, to actor Andrew Prine (who died in 2022), ended in an annulment. However, her son tells THR that she was never legally wed.
She is survived by her son, Chance Boyer.
