[Deathwatch] Margaret "Peg" Phillips, Actress, 84

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

'Northern Exposure's' Ruth-Anne dead at 84
Tuesday, November 12, 2002 Posted: 11:24 AM EST (1624 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/12/obit.phillips.ap/index.html

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Margaret "Peg" Phillips, a retired
accountant who took acting classes at age 65 and won fame as the
tart-tongued shopkeeper Ruth-Anne Miller in the television series
"Northern Exposure," has died. She was 84. 

Phillips, an unrepentant smoker, died Thursday morning of lung disease
at a suburban Seattle care center. 

CBS issued a statement saying, "Peg Phillips' memorable portrayal of
Ruth-Anne Miller on 'Northern Exposure' left an indelible imprint with
the millions of loyal fans of this groundbreaking series, as well as
with everyone at the network who had the opportunity to know and work
with her." 

In 1990, she was cast in what was supposed to be an intermittent role
in "Northern Exposure," a CBS series on the fish-out-of-water travails
of a New York doctor working off his student loan in the fictional town
of Cicely, Alaska. 

Shot in Washington state, the show began as a summer replacement series
but became so strong in the ratings it ran through 1995. 

Similarly, Phillips made her character so popular she was given a
regular role. 

On occasion she wrote her own lines. Criticized for smoking in one
episode, she retorted, "I've been smoking since I was 13 years old, and
during the Eisenhower administration I peaked at three packs a day. I'm
not about to stop now." 

Scorning pretension, she wore blue jeans, a red and white checked
blouse, blue suspenders and brown sandals to the Emmy award ceremony
when she was nominated for best supporting actress in 1993. When asked
who designed her outfit, she replied, "Me." 

Phillips appeared in at least eight movies, a number of television
commercials and made guest appearances in such TV series as "Seventh
Heaven," "Touched By An Angel" and "E.R." 

She appeared with Shirley MacLaine in "Waiting for the Light" (1990)
and in the made-for-TV movies "How the West Was Fun" (1994) and "Chase"
(1985). 

Born in Everett, Phillips overcame polio, peritonitis, a ruptured aorta
and, at age 81, a broken hip and wrist from being hit by a car.