Mary Frann

Mary Frann, born Mary Frances Luecke on February 27, 1943, in St. Louis, Missouri, was an American actress who worked across stage, film, and television. She is best known for playing Joanna Loudon, the wife of Bob Newhart's character Dick Loudon, on the CBS sitcom Newhart, which ran from October 1982 to May 1990. Frann died on September 23, 1998.

Growing up in St. Louis, Frann worked as a child model and appeared in commercials for a local television station while attending Nerinx Hall High School. At eighteen, she was named Missouri's Junior Miss, and in 1961 she won the national America's Junior Miss title, earning a college scholarship to study drama at Northwestern University. As the national titleholder, she appeared in a Jam Handy educational film titled Prom: It's a Pleasure. During her time at Northwestern, she worked as a weather reporter for the NBC affiliate in St. Louis. She left Northwestern after one year and relocated to Chicago, where she co-hosted a morning program on an ABC affiliate while also performing in local theater productions. Her television debut came in 1964 in an episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre titled "Once Upon a Savage Night," which was later expanded into the TV movie Nightmare in Chicago. In 1966, she made her feature film debut in Nashville Rebel, a low-budget musical drama starring Waylon Jennings.

Frann moved to Los Angeles in 1968, staying initially with actress Joan Van Ark, and soon won a role on the NBC crime drama My Friend Tony. At her agent's suggestion, she briefly used the stage name Jennifer Douglas, which she selected from a phone book, before returning to the name Mary Frann, which she had used since high school, after My Friend Tony was canceled following one season. In 1974, she joined the cast of the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives as Amanda Howard, a role she held until 1979. During that period she also made guest appearances on Quincy, M.E., The Rockford Files, Fantasy Island, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and WKRP in Cincinnati. In 1978, she was nearly cast as Sue Ellen Ewing on Dallas before producers chose Linda Gray for the part.

In 1982, Frann co-starred in the short-lived series King's Crossing alongside Linda Hamilton, which was canceled after one season. Later that same year she was cast as Joanna Loudon on Newhart. The series ran for eight seasons and received 25 Emmy nominations and five Golden Globe nominations. While Newhart was still in production, Frann appeared in the 1985 TV movie Gidget's Summer Reunion and the 1988 television film Dance 'til Dawn, which also featured Alyssa Milano, Christina Applegate, and Kelsey Grammer. She also co-hosted the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants in both 1986 and 1987, and served as hostess for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rose Parade. Shortly after filming the Newhart series finale, she was cast as Clementine Duke in the miniseries Lucky/Chances, based on two novels by Jackie Collins.

Frann's Broadway career took place between 1970 and 1971, during which she appeared in two productions: Ovid's Metamorphoses and Paul Sills' Story Theatre. Her final acting credit was an appearance in an episode of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction titled "The Curse of Hampton Manor," which aired two years after her death due to the series' irregular broadcast schedule.

Frann married T.J. Escott in 1973. They separated in 1982 and divorced the following year. She was a member of the Celebrity Action Council, a volunteer organization of celebrity women who supported the women's outreach program of the Los Angeles Mission, for seven years. On September 23, 1998, Frann died in her sleep at her home in Beverly Hills. An autopsy attributed her death to a heart attack and identified myocardial scarring consistent with earlier undiagnosed cardiac infarction. She is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.