Peggy McCay

Margaret Ann McCay, known professionally as Peggy McCay, was born on November 3, 1927, in New York, New York, and died on October 7, 2018, in Los Angeles from natural causes. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. McCay, she received her early education at Saint Walburga's Convent School before enrolling at Barnard College, from which she graduated in June 1949. Following her father's sudden death, McCay and her mother took over the management of his construction company for a time before she pursued her acting career in earnest.

Her professional career began in 1949 and spanned theatre, television, soap operas, and feature films. After graduating from Barnard, McCay joined Margo Jones's Texas-based theatre company, where she took on numerous roles in repertory. She also studied with Lee Strasberg in New York and later contributed to the establishment of his West Coast studio. Her Broadway career brought her to the stage in 1951 in The King of Friday's Men. That same year, she originated the role of Vanessa Dale on the CBS daytime drama Love of Life, a part she held until 1955. In 1956, McCay appeared in an off-Broadway production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, playing Sonya opposite Franchot Tone, a performance that earned her an Obie Award for Best Young Actress of the Year in an off-Broadway production. The following year, she and Tone reprised their roles in a Hollywood film adaptation of the play.

McCay's television work in the late 1950s included a 1958 appearance on Gunsmoke as Flora in the episode "Bottleman," alongside John Dehner, and a role as defendant Stephanie Falkner in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Long-Legged Models," also in 1958. In 1959, she played fraudster Melissa Maybrook in the Maverick episode "The Sheriff of Duck 'n' Shoot" with James Garner and Jack Kelly, and appeared in a supporting role in the Maverick episode "Kiz," starring Roger Moore and Kathleen Crowley. She also appeared in an episode of the CBS anthology series Appointment with Adventure and in four feature films during the late 1950s.

In 1962, McCay took on the lead role of Anna Perrott Rose in the ABC television series Room for One More, in which Andrew Duggan portrayed the character Cary Grant had played in the original film version. That same year she starred in the feature film Lad, A Dog. On November 7, 1962, she played Sally Mitchell in "House Guest," the eighth episode of the first season of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, opposite Robert Sterling and MacDonald Carey. On February 4, 1963, she appeared as Sharon DeSpain, an old girlfriend of Sheriff Andy Taylor, in the "Class Reunion" episode of The Andy Griffith Show. On April 9, 1963, she appeared in the Laramie episode "Broken Honor" on NBC, playing Martha Halloran alongside Rod Cameron. Also in 1963, she guest-starred on The Roaring 20s, The Greatest Show on Earth, Channing, Redigo, and The Virginian, and returned to Perry Mason as defendant Margaret Layton in "The Case of the Skeleton's Closet." In 1964, following a guest appearance in The Fugitive episode "The Garden House," she joined the cast of ABC's The Young Marrieds as a lead. When that series ended in 1966, she was written into ABC's General Hospital as Iris Fairchild, a role she held from March 1967 to January 1970.

Throughout the 1970s, McCay appeared in Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years, How the West Was Won, The Lazarus Syndrome, and a 1973 episode of Barnaby Jones titled "Blind Terror." She appeared in the 1975 television movie John O'Hara's Gibbsville and was a regular cast member of the short-lived 1976 series Gibbsville. During the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, she held a recurring role as Marion Hume on the CBS drama Lou Grant. Her feature film credits from this period include Promises in the Dark (1979), in which she played Mrs. Pritikin, and Bustin' Loose (1981), in which she appeared as Gladys Schuyler.

McCay first appeared on NBC's Days of Our Lives in February 1983, playing the matriarch Caroline Brady. After signing a long-term contract in 1985, she portrayed the character regularly for more than three decades, with her final appearance in the role airing on August 24, 2016. Her other feature film credits include Second Thoughts (1983) as Dr. Martha Carpenter, Daddy's Girl (1996) as Grandmother, and James Dean (2001) as Emma Dean. In 1991, McCay received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her work on The Trials of Rosie O'Neill. She never married, had no children, and left no immediate survivors at the time of her death.