Mary Louise Weller, the actress best known for her role as Mandy Pepperidge on “Animal House,” died Thursday after a long illness. She was 79 years old.
His long-time partner Michael Roy Curtis and several reports have confirmed his death.
Weller was born in New York on October 2, 1946 and raised in Westwood, California. The actor-singer Danny Kaye was his godfather and friend of his father. As a teenager, she trained with the U.S. Equestrian Team.
The actress made her film debut in the 1972 American political comedy “Hail! In 1978, she starred in the TV movies “Hunters of the Reef” and “The Evil” and landed her role as Mandy Pepperidge in John Landis’ hit comedy “Animal House.”
When asked in 2012 if she knew Animal House would be a hit, Weller responded, “I’m pretty sure we all knew the movie would be a huge hit…The script was just brilliant…” She recalled showing the script to then-ABC head Brandon Stoddard at the time: “He also knew it would be a huge hit…but he warned me that it would be the movie I would always be known for…”
Following her role as Pi House sorority sister and love interest, Weller appeared in Larry Peerce’s adaptation of “The Bell Jar,” “Once Upon a Spy,” “Forced Vengeance,” “Blood Tide” and Sylvia Plath’s “Q.”
The actress’s television credits include “Baretta”, “Kojak”, “CHiPS” and “Starsky & Hutch”. His last on-screen appearance was in 1983 in “Quincy, ME.”
Weller performed in several plays in New York and wrote “Four Alone,” a play that was performed at the Greenhouse Theater in Pasadena, California.
Weller is survived by his cousin Sheila Weller, an author whose books include the 2003 memoir “Dancing at Ciro’s: A Family’s Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset Strip” about her family’s life in 1950s Hollywood.
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