R.I.P. Joan Benedict: ‘General Hospital’ Actress Dead At 96

Actress Joan Benedict Steiger died of stroke complications on June 24, Deadline reports. She was 96.

According to the outlet, the news of her passing, which took place at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, was shared by a family spokesperson.

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The late actress was born in Brooklyn on July 21, 1927, per Deadline. Speaking with Media Mikes in 2011, Benedict highlighted that show business “was all [she] ever wanted to do since [she] was 7 years old,” and noted how she started dancing prior to finding work in acting.

“I started out dancing and singing around that age which soon led into acting a short time later,” she shared at the time. “It’s really hard to explain as I had of course seen movies and such before but I think even before that I knew I wanted to act. I guess it’s what I was born to do. Even though I was a shy girl I loved to show off.”

Early TV credits hers include Candid Camera and The Steve Allen Show , per The Hollywood Reporter . According to the outlet, she also found work on the game show Masquerade Party , and would go on to appear in the following soap operas: Days of Our Lives , General Hospital , and Capitol . Her other TV credits include The Incredible Hulk , Fantasy Island , T.J. Hooker , Hotel and Dollhouse .

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Her film resume includes titles like The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington (1977), Perfect Victims (1988), and Sweet Underground (2004). She also racked up several stage credits, deeming her 1993 performance of Leona as her favorite role in her interview with Media Mikes.

“It was a one woman show that I put on at the Matrix Theater in Hollywood,” she recalled. “I was almost able to take that play to Broadway however the writer and director were married and they seemed like they were always in conflict with each other. The play was very rewarding, though.”

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Outside of her work as an actor, Benedict was known for her marriage to In The Heat of the Night star Rod Steiger , who earned a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the 1967 crime thriller alongside Sidney Poitier .

While they met when they were 19 years old, they reconnected after Benedict’s first husband of thirty years, fellow actor John Myhers, died in 1992. She married Steiger in 2000, and after Steiger’s death in 2002, she struck up a relationship with Jeremy Slate, who later died in 2006.

Benedict is survived by her daughter and two granddaughters, per Deadline.

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