Osanna Phyllis Love Gooding

Osanna Phyllis Love Gooding MENIFEE -- Osanna Phyllis Love Gooding, an actress, educator, writer, and loving wife, passed away on Sunday, October 30, 2011, at the age of 85. Under her maiden and professional name, Phyllis Love, she acted in fifty-two television shows, eight Broadway plays, and six motion pictures. Her most notable performances include her role as Rosa Delle Rose in Tennessee William's play, Rose Tattoo, for which she won the New York Times Derwent Award. She was "electric" (New York Times Review) in her role as Mattie Birdwell in William Wyler's film, Friendly Persuasion, which won numerous awards and starred Gary Cooper. Osanna was raised in Des Moines, Iowa, by her Scotch father and school teacher mother. At an early age, her mother told her that she would never be pretty and should develop a personality. Osanna became captivated with the stage where she could assume the personality called for by the role. She became active in community theater in Des Moines and at Carnegie Mellon University, from which she graduated in 1948. Osanna moved to New York where she had an eye on the Broadway stage. Within a year, she became Julie Harris' understudy in the hit play, A Member of the Wedding. She married the New York playwright James McGee and became a member of the Actors Studio, where she studied under Lee Strasberg. In the fifties, she was a co-star in Broadway's Bus Stop, with Kim Stanley, and The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, with Burgess Meredith, and other plays. By the end of the "Golden Fifties," most television shows had been performed in New York but gradually moved to Hollywood, where Phyllis and her husband migrated. In 1961, she was featured in the movie, Young Doctors, starring Fredric March and Ben Gazzara. During the sixties, she was featured in such popular television shows such as Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, The Untouchables, and Hallmark Playhouse with Charles Boyer and Katharine Cornell. Phyllis realized that she could not play an ingenue forever. She took graduate study for a year at Cal-State University and obtained a teaching certificate. Phyllis started teaching high school English and drama in Los Angeles while still appearing in television shows, including The F.B.I., starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. She loved teaching and phased out her acting career by the mid-1970s when she divorced her husband. By 1982, she had a "cute remeet" with her college sweetheart, Alan Paul Gooding, a Hollywood lawyer. They were married in 1983, and she became an instant mother to Gooding's four children. Phyllis ended her teaching and commenced a writing career, wherein she wrote two screenplays and was a published author about true adventures of missionaries around the world. By 2003, she and her husband retired and moved to Menifee, California, where they have lived in a gated community for retirees aged 55 and over. In retirement, she has enjoyed the relationships with her four stepchildren and five step-grandchildren. There was a private funeral service for Phyllis at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale on November 2, 2011. Sign the Guest Book online obits.nctimes.com