The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Nanny: Ann Morgan Guilbert Dies at 87; Farewell Millie Helper

Actress Ann Morgan Guilbert died of cancer on Tuesday, June 14, 2016. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed her passing with daughter Nora Eckstein. She most recently guest starred as Gigi on two 2016 episodes of the CBS series, Life in Pieces (credited as Ann Guilbert Guyer), as pictured above. She also played Birdy Lamb on 15 episodes of HBO‘s Getting On TV show, which ended after three season totaling 18 episodes, in December 2015.

Best known to fans of classic television as Petrie neighbor Millie Helper on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 to 1966, CBS), Guilbert reached a whole new CBS audience between 1993 and 1999, as Yetta Rosenberg on The Nanny, starring Fran Drescher. Her other TV series work includes Picket Fences (1992-94, CBS), The Fanelli Boys (1990-91), which was cancelled after 19 episodes on NBC, and The New Andy Griffith Show (1971) which was cancelled after one season on CBS.

In recent years Guilbert guest-starred on ABC‘s Grey’s Anatomy as Gabby, in the 2015 “Old Time Rock and Roll,” episode. She played Grams on a 2013 episode of ABC’s Modern Family, “ClosetCon.” In 2012, she played Myrna in a 2012 episode of Fran Drescher’s Happily Divorced, “The Burial Plot,” on TV Land. She also guest-starred as Lenore on a 2007 episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Kamikaze Bingo.”

Here is more from The Hollywood Reporter:

 

The actress starred in Nicole Holofcener’s 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection, Please Give.

Guilbert had extensive theater credits, including the 2005 Broadway play A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, and productions of The Matchmaker, Arsenic and Old Lace, Waiting for Godot, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harvey.

A native of Minneapolis, Guilbert graduated from Stanford University’s Department of Speech and Drama, where she met the late producer-actor George Eckstein. They married and had two daughters, actress Hallie Todd (Lizzie McGuire) and Nora Eckstein, a writer, actress and acting teacher.

After her 1966 divorce, Guilbert married actor Guy Raymond, who died in 1997.

She is survived by her two daughters.

 

Watch Guilbert as Millie Helper, on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

 

 

Here she is playing Grandma Yetta, on The Nanny, and then appearing with co-star Renee Taylor, on The Fran Drescher Show.

 

 

We invite you to share your memories of Ms. Ann Morgan Guilbert and her career, below.