Eleanor Parker dead: 'Sound Of Music' actress dies at the 91

THE ANGELES (AP) - Eleanor Parker, who was nominated three times for Academy Awards for its representations of women of strong character and played a scheming Baroness in "The Sound of Music", has died at 91.

Richard Gale family friend said that Parker died Monday morning due to complications of pneumonia. "She died peacefully, surrounded by her children at a medical center near his home in Palm Springs," said Gale.

Parker was nominated for the Oscar in 1950, 1951 and 1955, but then saw his career begins to decline in the 1960's. Their latest memorable role came in "The Sound of Music," of 1965 in which played the scheming Baroness who lost to Christopher Plummer to Julie Andrews.

"Eleanor Parker was and is one of the most beautiful women I've ever met," Plummer said in a statement. "Both as a person and as a beauty. Not believe the sad news because I was sure that she was delighted and will live forever."

The death of Parker comes at a time when "The Sound of Music" is in the spotlight after NBC live restaging of classic last week, a success of audience.

"Parker worked only infrequently after"The Sound of Music", that shows how"Fantasy Island","Murder, She Wrote"and"Love cruise"appear in films and such television. Also starred in the television the sixty ephemeral series "the bracken world".

"I am above all a character actress," he said in an interview in 1988, explaining why she never achieved the stardom of so many of his co-stars. "I played so many diverse individuals in the screen never came up my own personality".

William Holden, Robert Preston, Dustin Hoffman and others, Parker was discovered at the Pasadena Playhouse.

He signed a contract at Warner Bros., where played minor roles only until the study acknowledged its dramatic depth and casting as Mildred Rogers in the 1946 remake of "Of human bondage".

The history of Somerset Maugham Bette Davis had made a star 12 years ago. Parker first day of filming, Davis sent flowers and a note proclaiming, "hope Mildred does so much for your career as did for me".

But the film failed, and Parker again was relegated to mediocre roles until his performance progress as an inmate in a brutal prison in the 1950 film "Caged." The Parker role brought him his first nomination for an Oscar as best actress.

His second came the following year as the frustrated wife of Kirk Douglas in "Detective Story".

His career had fully flourished with follow-up films like "Scaramouche" with Stewart Granger, "Beyond" with Robert Taylor, "Escape from Fort Bravo" with Holden, "Valley of the Kings" with Taylor and "The Naked Jungle" with Charlton Heston.

He took one of his most challenging roles in 1955 in "Interrupted Melody", portraying the opera star Marjorie Lawrence, who continued his career after contracting polio. Her front to having nine arias in three languages lip-sync, locked up in a cabin in Lake Arrowhead for two weeks and played records of eight to 10 hours a day.

The result: his third nomination for an Oscar.

Other notable films include "The man with the golden arm" and "A hole in the head" (both opposite Frank Sinatra) and "the King and four Queens" with Gable.

Growing up in Cedarsville, Ohio, Parker had wanted to be an actress, and when the family moved to Cleveland, began taking acting classes. In the summer he worked as an apprentice in an anonymous society of Martha's Vineyard, serving tables to keep.

After moving to Pasadena, was elected in his first role in cinema at the age of 19, a stake in "they died with their boots," starring Errol Flynn.

Parker's first three marriages ended in divorce: Marina dentist Fred L. Losse; producer Bert Friedlob, which resulted in three children, Susan, Sharon and Richard; and the painter Paul Clemens, with whom he had a son, the actor Paul Clemens. His marriage in 1966 with the Shubert Theatre Raymond Hirsch Manager ended with his death in 2001.

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