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Alaina Reed Hall dies at 63; actress was Olivia Robinson on 'Sesame Street'

Dennis McLellan Los Angeles Times 12/22/2009 03:21
Reed Hall described "Sesame Street" as "the best job I ever had."

Reed Hall described "Sesame Street" as "the best job I ever had."


Alaina Reed Hall, a singer and actress who played Olivia Robinson on "Sesame Street" for a dozen years beginning in the mid-1970s and later played Rose Holloway on the situation comedy "227," has died. She was 63.



Reed Hall, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007, died Thursday at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica,said her husband, Tamim Amini.

One of the original cast members of the 1974 off-Broadway production of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road," Reed Hall joined "Sesame Street" in 1976 and played Olivia -- a professional photographer and sister to the character Gordon -- until 1988.

In a 2004 interview with the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, Reed Hall described "Sesame Street" as "the best job I ever had."

When she heard fans calling out to her as she rode in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, she said, "It dawned on me. I have a big responsibility. I was in their house every day."

On "227," the 1985-90 NBC sitcom, she played the apartment landlady and best friend to star Marla Gibbs' Mary Jenkins character.

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