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Julie Gregg, who played the wife of James Caan’s character Sonny Corleone in the first two Godfather films, has died. She was 79.
Gregg died Monday at her home in Van Nuys, Calif., after a long battle with cancer, her niece Lisa Scalzo told The Hollywood Reporter.
Gregg received a Tony Award nomination for best featured actress in a musical for starring as Laurie Mannon in the 1968 production The Happy Time, directed by Gower Champion and featuring music by Kander & Ebb.
Gregg played Sandra Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) and portrayed Don Quixote’s niece Antonia in Arthur Hiller’s Man of La Mancha (1972), starring Peter O’Toole and Sophia Loren.
In 1966, Gregg modeled a succession of bathing suits as Finella, the blond moll of the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), in the first-season Batman two-parter in which the cagey bird kidnaps and brainwashes the butler Alfred (Alan Napier).
She also played Miss Canary Islands opposite Otto Preminger as Batman villain Mr. Freeze in season two and appeared as a chanteuse singing the French love song “Plaisir D’Amour” in a cabaret scene in Batman: The Movie (1966).
In the 1970s, Gregg had recurring roles on two short-lived series: Banyon, starring Robert Forster, and Mobile One, toplined by Jackie Cooper. Her TV résumé also included McHale’s Navy, The Farmer’s Daughter, Mannix, Bonanza, Baretta, The Incredible Hulk, B.J. and the Bear and Falcon Crest.
Born in New York on Jan. 24, 1937, Gregg, then known as Beverly Scalzo, graduated from USC, where she received a music scholarship.
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