Obituaries : * Juanin Clay; Actress, Director

Juanin Clay, a longtime television and film actress who turned her attention to stage directing in 1992, has died at a Los Angeles convalescent hospital. She was 45.

A Christian Scientist and a resident of Woodland Hills, Miss Clay died Sunday after a lengthy illness, said her friend, actor Robert Gallo.

After teaching kindergarten in Connecticut, Miss Clay got her start as an actress in the late 1960s, appearing as villain Raven Alexander on the television soap opera “The Edge of Night.”

She later starred in such off-Broadway productions as “The Collector,” “Caprice” and “The Dark Side of the Moon” and was a founding member of the New York Acting Unit, a Shakespearean repertory group.

In 1992, she co-wrote, produced and directed “King of the City” at the Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood. The production toured Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival later that year. In Los Angeles, her theater credits included “Disability: A Comedy” at the Mark Taper Forum Lab and “Othello” at the Los Angeles Globe.

Last year, Miss Clay staged Robert Anderson’s “I Never Sang for My Father” at Group Rep. “It’s such a universal story,” she told The Times. “You just change a couple of the references and it could happen anywhere. And it’s just as much a woman’s story as a man’s.”

Born Juanin de Zalduondo in New York’s Westchester County, she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Smith College and a master’s in education from Harvard University.

Miss Clay is survived by her mother, Barbara de Zalduondo of Nantucket, Mass., and two sisters, Barbara de Zalduondo II of Washington, D.C., and Lucille Briance of London. A private memorial service for family and friends will be held Sunday afternoon. A tribute to Miss Clay will take place at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Group Repertory Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Juanin Clay de Zalduondo Memorial Fund in care of Karen Pinson, 1148 5th Ave., Apt. 10-C, New York, N.Y. 10128.