Pippa Scott has died. The actress, known for roles on stage and screen, big and small, that spanned the second half of the 20th century, died of congenital heart failure at her Santa Monica home on May 22, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed via Scott’s daughter. She was 90.
The daughter of Oscar-nominated Top Hat and Swing Time screenwriter Allan Scott, Philippa Scott was born in Los Angeles on November 10, 1934. After studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, she made her Broadway debut in 1956. That year, she appeared in John Ford’s seminal western The Searchers as Lucy, one of the kidnapped girls who sets the plot in motion. Before the decade was through, she appeared in Auntie Mame.
Scott was a fixture of mid-century television and a frequent guest star of the era’s most beloved shows. She appeared on The Twilight Zone, The Virginian, The Fugitive, Dick Van Dyke, Perry Mason, Mission: Impossible, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lancer, The Waltons, and Columbo. In 1964, she married Lee Rich, who founded Lorimar Productions, which produced The Waltons, Dallas, and later, Perfect Strangers and Full House. The couple divorced in 1983. Though they did not remarry, they reconnected in 1996 and remained together until Rich’s 2012 death.
The niece of Adrian Scott, one of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten, Scott turned to humanitarian issues in the 1980s. She founded the International Monitor Institute, a non-profit that collected evidence for prosecuting war crimes. She also started Linden Productions to develop and produce documentaries on the subject. In 2006, she co-directed King Leopold’s Ghost about the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium. Her final screen performance was in 2013’s Automotive.
She is survived by daughters Jessica and Miranda and five grandchildren.
