Jean Allison, ‘Perry Mason’ and ‘77 Sunset Strip’ Actor, Dies at 94

Jean Allison, a television star who notched appearances in more than 80 series, has died. She was 94 years old.

Allison’s family said that the actor — who lived in Rancho Palos Verdes, California — died on February 28, according to The Hollywood Reporter. No cause of death has been announced.

Across her 27-year screen career, Allison starred in episodes of Maverick, Bonanza, Perry Mason, 77 Sunset Strip, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gunsmoke, Adam-12, Ironside, and St. Elsewhere, among many others.

She also hit the big screen in the 1958 film Edge of Fury, in which she played a woman pursued by Michael Higgins’ psychopathic character. Her other film credits include The Devil’s Partner (as seen above), The Steagle, Bad Company, and Hardcore.

Allison was born and raised in New York, attending Harmony High School in Tarrytown and Adelphi College in Garden City. An agent signed Allison after seeing her perform in the play Teach Me How to Cry, and the actor made her screen debut in a 1957 installment of General Electric Theater. As seen below, Allison starred alongside Chuck Connors and John Agar in that episode.

TV Guide/Courtesy: Everett Collection

Her other TV credits include episodes of The Californian, Schlitz Playhouse, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Dr. Kildare, and Starsky and Hutch. She made her last screen appearance in a 1984 episode of Highway to Heaven.

Allison was married three times — to actor and director Lee Philips, boxing trainer Jerry Boyd (whose short stories inspired Million Dollar Baby), and electrical engineer Philip Toorvald — according to her IMDb bio. She and Philips had one daughter, Erin, and she and Toorvald had two, Sven and Tina, and were married from 1961 until his 1994 death. Fifty years after meeting on the set of Edge of Fury, Allison and cinematographer Jack Couffer reconnected and shared their lives together in retirement, the bio notes.