Priscilla Pointer

An actor who came to the fore in prominent supporting roles in film and TV relatively late in life, Pointer did her professional best typecast as concerned wives and mothers, assured career women and the occasional stern villain. Trained for the stage, she first performed in a touring company of "Kiss and Tell"; Broadway work over the years would include original productions and revivals of "The Country Wife," "Condemned of Altona" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." Married to actor turned TV producer-director Jules Irving from 1947 until his death in 1979, Pointer devoted much of her energy to raising their three children, one of whom is actress Amy Irving. Work in TV, in fact, only got underway for Pointer in the early 1970s as she approached age 50. She played a doctor in the daytime soap "Where the Heart Is," a history teacher in "The Failing of Raymond" (1971), Gen. Douglas MacArthur's (Henry Fonda) wife in "Collision Course" (1976) and a deaf parent in the ABC Afterschool Special "Mom and Dad Can't Hear Me" (1978).