‘Coming Home’ Oscar Nominee & ‘Heathers’ Counselor Was 77

Penelope Milford, who scored an Oscar nomination for Coming Homeplayed the school counselor in Heathers, appeared on Broadway and had roles in Endless Love and other films, has died. She was 77.

Her family told our sister publications that Milford died Tuesday in Saugerties, NY, but did not provide a cause.

Born on March 23, 1948, in St. Louis, MO, Penelope Milford got her start on the New York stage, co-starring with Richard Gere in the Off Broadway show Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone. She later appeared on Broadway in Lenny (1972) with Cliff Gorman, who won a Tony for his lead title role, and the Best Musical Tony nominee Shenandoah (1975), for which she earned a Drama Desk nomination as featured actress.

She had appeared in a few films including Norman Mailer’s 1970 indie drama Maidstone and an episode of CBS’ George Kennedy chop drama The Blue Knight before landing the role of her career. Milford was cast in Hal Ashby’s 1978 drama Coming Home nor Vi Munson, whose brother Bill (Robert Carradine) returns from the Vietnam War a changed man, despite only being in the country for a couple of weeks. Her roommate Sally (Jane Fonda) is married to a Marine (Bruce Dern) who is about to be deployed in Southeast Asia; things change when Vi inspires Sally to volunteer at a local VA hospital, where she meets an old classmate (Jon Voight).

Milford picked up a Supporting Actress Oscar nom for her role — one of eight the film got including Best Picture — but lost to Maggie Smith in California Suite. Fonda and Voight won Academy Awards for their lead roles, and the pic also won for Best Original Screenplay. Watch the Coming Home trailer here:

Milford would go on to appear in more than a dozen films and TV movies through the late 1990s, including a role as Westerburg High School counselor in the cult dark comedy Heathers (1988), opposite Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannen Doherty. Other big-screen roles included Franco Zeffirelli’s Brooke Shields drama Endless Love, Ken Russell’s Rudolf Nureyev-led Valentino (1977), the Robert Hays-Barbara Hershey romp Take This Job and Shove It (1979), drama Cold Justice (1991) and John McNaughton’s Luke Perry-Ashley Judd crime drama Normal Life (1996) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Part 2 (1996). Her final movie role was in the 1999 dark comedy Night of the Lawyers.

Milford also appeared in a number of TV movies, most notably The Burning Bed, the 1984 thriller starring Farrah Fawcett that landed eight Emmy nominations. She also starred as the ailing title character in the 1980s Seizures: The Story of Kathy Morris opposite Leonard Nimoy and had roles in 1982’s Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story starring Sondra Locke and 1980’s The Oldest Living Graduate opposite Henry Fonda and Cloris Leachman.

Her brother Richard Kim Milford also appeared in multiple Broadway shows, including playing Rocky in the original production of The Rocky Horror Show that inspired the ultimate cult classic movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He died in 1980.

After leaving Hollywood, Milford taught at film schools in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Survivors include her brother Doug Milford and sister Candace Saint.