Marcia Wallace, the voice of Edna Krabappel — Bart Simpson’s jaded, chain-smoking schoolteacher on the animated show The Simpsons — has died, the show producers said on Saturday. She was 70.
Wallace died in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia, her son Michael Hawley told the Los Angeles Times.
“I was tremendously saddened to learn this morning of the passing of the brilliant and gracious Marcia Wallace,” read a statement from the show’s executive producer Al Jean posted on Facebook.
Photo: Reuters
“She was beloved by all at The Simpsons and we intend to retire her irreplaceable character,” Jean wrote.
Wallace’s career in show business included her role as a sassy receptionist on the 1970s TV comedy The Bob Newhart Show, and guest roles in 1980s and 1990s shows like Full House, Taxi and Murphy Brown.
In 1992, Wallace won a Primetime Emmy award for her work on The Simpsons.
Harry Shearer — who plays several key Simpsons voices, including greedy tycoon Montgomery Burns and two of Krabappel’s love interests, school principal Seymour Skinner and Simpsons neighbor Ned Flanders — took to Twitter to share his grief.
“So sad to learn — through Twitter, first — of the passing of the wonderful Marcia Wallace. Sorely missed already,” Shearer wrote.
Jean said the show had been considering staging the death of another one of show’s characters, but not Edna Krabappel.
“Marcia’s passing is unrelated and again, a terrible loss for all who had the pleasure of knowing her,” Jean wrote on Facebook.
Wallace was “sweet, funny, not at all pretentious,” Jean told the Los Angeles Times. “You fall in love with these people when you see them as characters on television, but when you met Marcia you loved her even more.”
“I don’t intend to have anyone else play Mrs. Krabappel,” Jean added. “I think Bart will get a new teacher.”
Wallace’s final role is in Muffin Top: A Love Story, a film set for release next year in which she appears with her son, who is also an actor.
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