Lily Valenty; Immigrant Character Actress in Television Series, Movies

Lily Valenty, an immigrant character actress who taught herself English by reading “Anthony Adverse” with a dictionary and became proficient enough in her new language to work regularly in films and television for more than 30 years, is dead.

Daily Variety, the entertainment newspaper, reported in its Thursday editions that she had died March 11 at her home in Hollywood at the age of 86. Her death had gone unreported until friends notified the paper, a Variety spokesman said.

Born in Poland to Jewish parents, she moved to Germany as a girl to pursue an acting career over the objections of her father who called acting a “breadless profession.” When Hitler took power in the 1930s she moved to America where she worked on the Broadway stage before coming to Hollywood in the 1950s.

She appeared regularly on the “Bonanza,” “My Three Sons,” “Little House on the Prairie,” “Hart to Hart” and “Falcon Crest” television series while acting in such motion pictures as “Wild Is the Wind,” “The Story of Ruth,” “Rome Adventure,” “The Babymaker” and “Tell Me a Riddle.”