It was one of TV's most memorable exits. Viewers weren't the only ones stunned. Muldaur had discovered her character's fate only when leafing through her script days before shooting the scene.
Real life is hard.
Writer-producer Dozier had just been diagnosed with cancer, to which Muldaur had lost her first husband, actor James Vickery. She has an effervescent effect on people. That's been true since the '60s, when the Brooklyn-born daughter of a magazine executive and a homemaker made her name on the New York City stage. She wed Vickery in 1969 and landed a recurring role on McCloud from 1970-77. In 1979, Vickery died.