Charlotte Jones; Veteran Stage, Screen Actress

Charlotte Jones, a veteran character actress on and off Broadway who also toured with many regional theater companies, is dead at age 76.

Her husband, Matteo Bocchino, said this week that his wife died of heart disease Nov. 6 in a hospital in Toms River, N.J., their hometown.

Born Charlotte Nathanson, she attended Loyola University Law School in Chicago before deciding on an acting career.

She studied in New York City and made her Broadway debut in the 1952 musical “Buttrio Square.”

Over the next several years she was seen in Elia Kazan’s Broadway production of Tennessee Williams’ “Camino Real,” created the twin roles of Madame Branislowski and Mother Burnside in “Mame,” was Mrs. Millhauser in “How Now, Dow Jones,” and appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn in the 1976 Broadway play “A Matter of Gravity.”

With regional companies she played more than 60 roles, including national tours of “Come Blow Your Horn” and as Yente in a 1970 Los Angeles production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Her films included “Middle of the Night,” “The Fool Killer,” “Lovers and Other Strangers.”