Anne Whitfield, who appeared in the beloved holiday classic White Christmas and on dozens of TV shows, from Father Knows Best, 77 Sunset Strip and Perry Mason to That Girl, Ironside and Emergency!, has died. She was 85.
Whitfield died Feb. 7 at a hospital in Yakima, Washington, after suffering an “unexpected accident” while on a walk in her neighborhood, family members announced.
“She was a powerhouse in life, and we hope her immense positive energy flows out to those who had the pleasure of knowing her,” they wrote.
Whitfield was 15 and had done lots of acting on the radio when she was cast as Susan Waverly, the granddaughter of Dean Jagger’s Major Gen. Thomas F. Waverly — “The Old Man” — in the Michael Curtiz-directed Paramount musical White Christmas (1954). The film starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.
She got to watch White Christmas with her family on the 70th anniversary of the making of the film in December.
An only child, Anne Langham Whitfield was born on Aug. 27, 1938, in Oxford, Mississippi. Her father, Richard, was the orchestra and marching band director at the University of Mississippi, and her mother, Frances, taught speech and drama at a junior college. (Later, she would tutor the kids on The Brady Bunch.)