Pat Colbert, who played restaurant host Dora Mae on the long-running primetime soap Dallas, has died at the age of 77, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Colbert passed away on June 23, her sister Tami Colbert says, after suffering three strokes over the past decade.
The actress co-starred on the NBC series Flamingo Road and appeared in episodes of Benson and The Fall Guy before joining the cast of Dallas in Season 6. Colbert played Dora Mae, the host of the Oil Baron’s Club, a popular local restaurant and frequent hangout for the Ewing family. She went on to appear in more than 65 episodes, up to and including the 14th and final season.
“As the only recurring African American character on the series, Dora Mae never had a storyline, because Dallas never tried to pretend to be anything more than the saga of the Ewing family, but she played the role with elegance and intelligence,” blogger Shaun Chang said in a statement to THR.
“The leading characters, and the show itself, treated her with respect and without any sense of condescension,” Chang added. “Dallas had many recurring supporting characters who helped create a sense of community for a show set in a major city, and Dora Mae was part of the fabric of the series.”
Aside from her work on Dallas, Colbert starred opposite Bill Cosby in the 1987 comedy Leonard Part 6 and later appeared in a pair of episodes of NBC’s Sisters.
RIP