Alice Hirson, Soap Opera Vet And Mom To Ellen, Dead At 95

Alice Hirson, a veteran character actress whose TV credits included more than a half dozen daytime and primetime soaps, and who played mom to Ellen on the 1990s ABC sitcom, died Feb. 14 of natural causes, her son David told THR.com.

Hirson was 95.

After beginning her acting career in the 1950s with appearances on a few anthology series, Hirson joined ABC's daytime serial The Edge of Night in the series regular role of the vengeful and sometimes murderous Stephanie Martin.

She went on to play Marcia Davis in both NBC's Another World and its offshoot Somerset, and in the early 1970s played Joe Riley's big sister, Eileen, on ABC's One Life to Live.

From there, Hirson's TV credits included episodes of Maude, The Waltons, Barnaby Jones and Taxi. In 1982, she had a short arc on ABC's General Hospital, which she followed up with episodes of Quincy M.E., Hotel and (the original) Matlock.

On CBS' Dallas, Hirson had a run as Mavis Anderson, friend and confidante of Miss Ellie Ewing. That was followed by a series regular role on the NBC sitcom Home Fires, and in 1994 she made her debut as Ellen DeGeneres' TV mom, Lois Morgan, in the aforementioned Ellen.

Hirson's more recent TV credits included Home Fires, 7th Heaven (as Jenny Jackson), The Secret Life of the American Teenager (as Mimsy), and a 2019 episode of Will & Grace.