Actress Sothern Dies

By Stephen M. Silverman

Tuesday April 28, 1998 12:00 AM EDT

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Actress Ann Sothern, 92, a Hollywood favorite from the '30s to the '80s, died at her home in Ketchum, Idaho, on Thursday. Audiences first fell in love with her as the star of MGM's "Maisie" series, while baby boomers will recall her Lucy-like stature on TV's "Private Secretary," a '50s sitcom in which she played savvy secretary Susie McNamara. Sothern, born Harriette Lake (studio bosses changed her name because there was already a Veronica Lake), made her last movie in 1987, "The Whales of August" (with Bette Davis), but denizens of TV Land can still catch her as the Countess Framboise on reruns of "The Lucy Show." (She and Lucille Ball were longtime friends.) Sothern also supplied the voice on one of the most lambasted TV shows of all time, 1965's "My Mother the Car." As Sothern told The New York Times at the time of "Whales of August," "I've done everything but play rodeos."