They just announced it on the radio. I don’t see any news links yet.
Sad news. At least now she’s movin’ on up.
Weez-ay!
She certainly had a good run- she was 86 years old (20 years older than her TV husband Sherman Hemsley; there was also a 20 year age-gap twixt her fellow black TV mom-wife of the 70s, Esther Rolle, and her on-air husband John Amos). She also defied every odd there was by not only making it in acting (difficult for anybody) but making it as a middle-aged black woman of no extraordinary talent.
I saw her home on one of the Celebritie’s Houses series some while back. She apparently took much better care of her money than Sherman because the place was by anybody’s standards a mansion and showplace. It was also in Georgia, though she died in California. (The main thing I remember about it was the pool table in the kitchen.)
Holy Crap, 86?
RIP, Weezy.
Louise (I never called her “Weezy”; that was just what George called her) was an awesome character! Perfect foil for George.
George: This is the living area, where we does our living; this is the dining area, where we does our dining; and this is the kitchen area—
Louise: Where we does our kitchening.
Louise: Lionel, go in the other room; I don’t want you to get hit by your father.
Lionel: Why would Dad hit me?
Louise: Because I’m not sure where I’m going to throw him!
George: A pet cemetary? Tom, you should go look for your ancestors! I’m sure they got some zebras there!
Louise: Maybe you should look for your ancestors, George…I’m sure they have some jackasses there!
Mother Jefferson: And here’s a photo of me!
Louise: Oh…is this the one taken during the Civil War?
She had such a majestic voice, and a bearing to match. Despite her age, she had it goin’ on. When she dressed as Mae West for Halloween, the audience went nuts.
There was a special episode of Roseanne where R was visited by various TV moms. Mrs. Cleaver, Mrs. Arnold. the mom from “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”, someone I forget, and Louise.
My mom: But how is Louise a ‘TV mom’? Her only kid was Lionel, and he was an adult.
Me: No, George was also her kid.
Mom: Oyeah!
Back when Redd Foxx died, I was kind of surprised that none of the newspaper ephitaphs read:
Fred Sanford Has Big One, Joins Elizabeth
(No relation to Weezy – it was the actress’s last name of “Sanford” that reminded me.)
From the marvelous scene on “All in the Family” where Edith and Louise were saying goodbye:
Edith: Have I ever told you that—I love you?
Louise: Only every minute we ever spent together.
That did choke me up.
Hijacking my own thread: Has anyone else seen Marla Gibbs (The Jefferson’s maid Florence) play Aunt Erma on the soap “Passions.” She is good.
I remember when she finally won her first Emmy. She leaned on the podium, gave the audience that look that Weezy always gave George, and said:
"It’s about time."
I remember that too. Normally, when somebody’s being nominated for an award, the camera crews show that person sitting in the audience. She wasn’t in the audience when they were announcing the nominees, so they showed her publicity photo. When she won, she came out from backstage, licking her fingertips. When she got up to the mike, she said “You’ll have to excuse me. I was in the back eating cheese puffs” and kept licking her fingertips.
Talk about being herself! No fakery there.
What an amazing life she had–from her NY Times obit:
In an “Intimate Portrait” on Lifetime Television last year, Ms. Sanford called herself a survivor: literally, as the youngest of seven children and the only one to survive infancy, and figuratively, as she came to rely on her comedic skills for respite from her poverty-stricken childhood in Harlem. As a teenager, she dreamed of becoming an actress, earning raves at an amateur night at the Apollo Theater before her mother’s death quashed her aspirations, leaving Ms. Sanford to take over her job as a cleaning woman. Still, amid a troubled marriage and the birth of three children, Ms. Sanford joined the Star Players, later the American Negro Theater, in the 1930’s and made her stage debut in the company’s 1946 production of “On Strivers Row.”