Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald

Edith Marie Blossom MacDonald (August 21, 1895 – January 14, 1978), known as Blossom Rock.

Rock was an actress of vaudeville, stage, television, and film. She was occasionally billed as Marie Blake or Blossom MacDonald. Her younger sister was screen actress and singer Jeanette MacDonald. As a youth, she first performed in vaudeville with Jeanette. Rock adopted the name Marie Blake for her film career, starting in 1937 with an uncredited appearance in My Dear Miss Aldrich. Her first credited major part was Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), and she then played her most notable onscreen role as Sally, the hospital switchboard operator, in all nine pictures of MGM's Dr. Kildare film series from 1938 to 1942. Rock returned to using her real name in the 1950s, and later gained her biggest fame by playing "Grandmama" on the ABC series The Addams Family, which ran from 1964 to 1966. At the end of the series, in 1966, she suffered a massive stroke. It left her so weak she was unable to walk and a slow deep-slurred speech. However within months, Blossom regained some of her strength but was unable to walk, except for short distances, without support. Her heavily-slurred speech never improved. Because of her heath, she was not able to appear in the 1977 Addams Family reunion movie. She died on January 14, 1978 at age 82, and is buried with her husband Clarence Rock at Forest Lawn-Glendale.