Betty McGuire, the Growing Pains actress who shared the screen with Leonardo DiCaprio, has died at 100 after decades on stage and television.
The Sun reported that Betty McGuire died of natural causes on October 8 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in California.
Her power of attorney, Keith Gerchak, confirmed the cause of death, Variety said. She was best known to TV audiences as grandma Kate Malone, mother of Joanna Kerns’ Maggie, on the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains.
McGuire appeared in seasons 1 and 2, then returned for seasons 4 through 7. That added up to seven years on the show, including work alongside a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
The credit was only one chapter in a long working life that ran from Broadway to guest spots across network television.
McGuire performed in the original Broadway productions of Plain and Fancy, Happy Hunting, and Oh, Captain! She shared those stages with Ethel Merman, Barbara Cook, Bea Arthur, and Tony Randall.
She later headlined as Mame at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Touring credits included Oliver!, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Gypsy.
On screen in the 1970s, she played Sister Mary Quacker in Up in Smoke and a nurse in Coma. Television kept calling after that.
Her guest roles spanned Falcon Crest, The Doris Day Show, Columbo, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Hill Street Blues, ER, CSI: Miami, MacGyver, Moonlighting, and Charlie’s Angels. It was the kind of steady, unglamorous work that built a real career instead of a short burst of fame.
In Los Angeles, McGuire volunteered as a receptionist for the Coalition for Economic Survival legal clinic. The center helped low-income tenants facing eviction. She showed up for people in trouble long after most performers step back from public life.
At the Motion Picture & Television Fund home, she hosted an in-house talk show called GabFest, interviewing care staff. She did not treat retirement as an exit. She treated it as another stage.
Speaking to NBC Nightly News about that late chapter, McGuire kept the tone light and grateful.
"a happy camper"
She pressed the point further when she talked about starting fresh past 90.
"To have the chance to do new things and different things at 92, can you think of anything better? I can’t."
That is not the voice of someone waiting to be celebrated. It is the voice of someone still looking for the next useful task.
A hundred years of craft, touring, guest roles, and quiet volunteer shifts beats the modern habit of quitting early and calling it self-care. McGuire kept the appointment with work, and with other people, until the end.
