DEATH : Actress Mary Treen Dies at Age 82

Veteran character actress Mary Treen, who played a series of plain working girls and wise-cracking spinsters over more than three decades of film work, died today of cancer at 82 at her Newport Beach home. For many years she had been sharing a home with Marge Klein, 81, her vaudeville partner and lifelong friend, said Suzanne Catlin, Klein’s daughter.

Miss Treen appeared in more than 40 films, including “Babbitt” in 1934, “The Birds and the Bees” in 1956 and “Who’s Minding the Store?” in 1963. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the 1947 film starring Jimmy Stewart that has become a Christmas film classic, she played the cousin.

Miss Treen, who was born in St. Louis in 1907, studied dancing and appeared in stage musicals and vaudeville revues before starting her film career. Catlin said her mother and Miss Treen used to have a comedy, singing and dancing act.