{"id":868893,"date":"2026-10-03T01:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868893\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T01:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:54:09","slug":"mary-louise-weller-dead-animal-house-actress-was-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/868893\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Louise Weller Dead: ‘Animal House’ Actress Was 79"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tMary Louise Weller<\/a>, the actress known for her role as Mandy Pepperidge in \u201cAnimal House<\/a>,\u201d died Thursday after a long illness. She was 79.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer longtime partner Michael Roy Curtis and multiple reports confirmed her death. <\/p>\n

\n\tWeller was born in New York City on Oct. 2, 1946, and raised in Westwood, Calif. Actor-singer Danny Kaye was her godfather and friend of her father. As a teenager, she trained with the U.S. Equestrian Team.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress made her film debut in the 1972 American political comedy \u201cHail!\u201d In 1978, she starred in the TV film \u201cHunters of the Reef\u201d and \u201cThe Evil\u201d and landed her role as Mandy Pepperidge in the John Landis comedy hit \u201cAnimal House.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked in 2012 if she knew \u201cAnimal House\u201d would be a hit, Weller said<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure all of us knew that the movie would be a huge hit\u2026 The script was simply brilliant\u2026\u201d She recalled showing then-head of ABC Brandon Stoddard the script: \u201cHe also knew it would be an enormous hit\u2026 but he warned me that it would be the movie I would always be known for\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing her role as the Pi House sorority sister and love interest, Weller appeared in Larry Peerce\u2019s adaptation of Sylvia Plath\u2019s \u201cThe Bell Jar,\u201d \u201cOnce Upon a Spy,\u201d \u201cForced Vengeance,\u201d \u201cBlood Tide\u201d and \u201cQ.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe actress\u2019s television credits include \u201cBaretta,\u201d \u201cKojak,\u201d \u201cCHiPS\u201d and \u201cStarsky & Hutch.\u201d Her final on-screen appearance was in 1983 on \u201cQuincy, M.E.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWeller acted in several plays in New York and wrote \u201cFour Alone,\u201d a play that was performed at the Greenhouse Theater in Pasadena, Calif.<\/p>\n

\n\tWeller is survived by her cousin Sheila Weller, an author whose books include the 2003 memoir \u201cDancing at Ciro\u2019s: A Family\u2019s Love, Loss, and Scandal on the Sunset Strip\u201d about her family\u2019s life in 1950s Hollywood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mary Louise Weller, the actress known for her role as Mandy Pepperidge in \u201cAnimal House,\u201d died Thursday after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[290217,236,88,366356],"class_list":["post-868893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-animal-house","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-mary-louise-weller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}