Who was Pippa Scott? Actress known for Auntie Mame and The Searchers dies at 90

Actress Pippa Scott, best known for her roles in The Searchers, Petulia, and Auntie Mame, has died at 90. Her daughter, Miranda Tollman, told The Hollywood Reporter in an article published on June 8 that Scott died peacefully on May 22 of congenital heart failure at her home in Santa Monica.

Scott was born in Los Angeles on November 10, 1934, to a Hollywood-acclaimed family. Her mother was a stage actress, Laura Straub, and her father was Oscar-nominated screenwriter Allan Scott. Her uncle was writer-producer Adrian Scott. She went on to marry Lee Rich, co-founder of Lorimar Productions.

More about Pippa Scott's life and career

Born to stage actress Laura Straub and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Allan Scott, Pippa Scott studied at Radcliffe and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Pippa made her Broadway debut in 1956 with Jed Harris' Child of Fortune, and also appeared as a young teacher in As Young as We Are in 1958.

In 1956, she gained recognition with her role as Lucy in John Ford's The Searchers. Two years later, she played Pegeen Ryan in the popular Auntie Mame.

Pippa also guest starred in various television shows throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s, including The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Columbo, and more. She got a recurring role in the 1976 series, Jigsaw.

On Broadway, she appeared in the New York company of 1959's Look Back in Anger, Isn't it Romantic (1984), and collaborated with John Houseman at UCLA in a 1973 production of Three Sisters.

Pippa Scott married Lee Rich, producer and founding partner of Lorimar Productions, in 1964. Scott and Rich divorced in 1983, only to reconnect in 1996 and stay together until Rich died in 2012.

Since Pippa's family experienced the consequences of persecution, she founded The International Monitor Institute in 1993, a nonprofit organization that worked to gather evidence to assist the prosecution of war crimes in the Balkans, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Congo, Cambodia, and Iraq.

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She also founded Linden Productions to fight against human rights violations. Her projects were commissioned by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the International Rescue Committee. In 1998, Pippa produced the PBS Frontline documentary, The World's Most Wanted Man, which documented the hunt for Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Her last acting project was a role in the indie feature, Footprints, in 2009.

Pippa Scott is survived by her daughters, Miranda, Jessica, and five grandchildren.

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