Maxine Stuart, Actress, Dead: `Twilight Zone’ Video Star Was 94 [VIDEO]

Maxine Stuart, actress, is dead. The “Twilight Zone” video star, who was 94 at the time of her death, appeared on stage, film and TV.

Maxine Stuart’s career included guest appearances on “The Twilight Zone” and “The Wonder Years.” According to her daughter, Chris Ann Maxwell, Stuart died of natural causes at her Beverly Hills home.

Maxine Stuart’s career began on stage in New York’s theater district. She played in some small movie roles, but was better known for her work on television. Stuart appeared in dramatic anthology programs in the early 1950s. She then became a regular player on the soap opera, “The Edge of Night."

In the late 1950s, Stuart moved to Los Angeles with her then-husband, the character actor Frank Maxwell. Stuart began to get roles in a string of television series. Stuart played a woman covered in bandages after she had eleven plastic surgeries to fix her appearance in a 1960 episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “Eye of the Beholder.” She played the part until the bandages came off, when her part was then played by the actress Donna Douglas.

In 1989, Stuart was nominated for an Emmy for her guest role as a piano teacher in “The Wonder Years.” Stuart continued acting into the 2000s. She played on such shows as “Dr. Kildare,” “Peyton Place,” “Murphy Brown,” “NYPD Blue,” “Chicago Hope” and “Judging Amy.”

Stuart joined the cast of the CBS daytime soap opera “The Young and the Restless” in 1993 for a subplot about an older couple. The show’s co-creator William J. Bell cast Stuart after he saw her play an intern on “Murphy Brown.”

William J. Bell told The Times, “She epitomized what I wanted – someone who brought a feistiness, a vitality and energy with her, who's gregarious and fun-loving.”

Stuart was in in 70s at the time, but told the press “When you’re 20, you think, ‘Oh, my God, if I ever get to be 30, I’ll be so old.’ But when you get to be this age, if you don’t look in the mirror – or see yourself on TV – you don’t know.”

Watch Maxine Stuart discuss her role on "The Twilight Zone" here:

 by Tony Sokol