Penny Singleton

Penny Singleton, who brought the comic strip character Blondie to life in a popular series of films and was the voice of the mother on " The Jetsons, " has died. She was 95.

Mrs. Singleton died Wednesday at Sherman Oaks Hospital, two weeks after suffering a stroke, longtime friend Dick Sheehan said.

The Blondie series, which had 28 films from 1938 to 1950, was based on the cartoon strip about the misadventures of a small-town family created by Chic Young in 1930. Arthur Lake played Blondie ' s husband, the bumbling Dagwood Bumstead.

Among the films: " Blondie Meets the Boss, " " Blondie Plays Cupid " and " Blondie Knows Best. "

In his " Movie and Video Guide, " critic Leonard Maltin wrote that the earlier entries in the series were " fresh and original with many clever touches belying the fact they were low-budget films. " Later, he said, a formula set in. Some critics felt Mrs. Singleton and Lake made the characters one-dimensional, but the reference book " Halliwell ' s Film Guide " calls them " perfect screen incarnations. "

Mrs. Singleton had no regrets.

" I ' m proud and grateful I was Blondie, " she said in a 1973 book on film serials, " Saturday Afternoon at the Bijou. "

" She was dumb and shrewish sometimes, " she said. " But she was real and sympathetic and warm, a real woman, a human being. And that ' s how I tried to play her. "

No one else ever played Blondie and Dagwood on the big screen. Two later " Blondie " TV series were short-lived.

After her stint as Blondie, Mrs. Singleton was the voice of Jane Jetson in " The Jetsons, " Hanna-Barbera ' s updated counterpart to its highly successful " Flintstones " cartoon family. The show ran in prime time for just one season, 1962-63, but has been widely seen in reruns.

Mrs. Singleton also appeared in the 1964 film " The Best Man, " but spent most of her time touring in nightclubs and roadshows of plays and musicals, such as " Call Me Madam. "

She became active in the American Guild of Variety Artists, the union representing touring performers, chorus girls and other entertainers. She pushed for union reforms and, as union vice president in the 1960s, helped lead a strike by the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

Mrs. Singleton was born in 1908 some references say 1909 the daughter of a Philadelphia newspaperman. She got her start in show business by winning an amateur contest, and was touring in vaudeville by her early teens.

After debuting on Broadway in the late ' 20s, she began appearing in films, at first under her given name, Dorothy McNulty. She took the name Singleton after marrying dentist Lawrence Singleton in 1937.

In the mid- ' 30s, she played several roles as shady characters, and got worried she would be typecast.

" I just didn ' t want to be typed, " she once said. " It goes to show you how you can eat your words. I became probably the most typed actress in the world. But at least (Blondie) had some dignity. "

Mrs. Singleton is survived by two daughters, two grandchildren and a great-grandson.