[Matt]

As Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons, Marcia Wallace may be the only 4th-grade teacher to have the same student for 24 years. Before that, she was beloved as Carol Kester, the lovelorn, wisecracking secretary on The Bob Newhart Show.

Wallace, who was also a breast cancer survivor for 28 years, has died at age 70, according to the showrunner of The Simpsons. “I was tremendously saddened to learn this morning of the passing of the brilliant and gracious Marcia Wallace,” producer Al Jean said in a statement to EW. “She was beloved by all at The Simpsons and we intend to retire her irreplaceable character.”

It has become a sad tradition of the extremely long-running show to simply cease using characters whose voice actors pass away. The first instance was when Phil Hartman died in 1998, and the show retired his sleazy attorney Lionel Hutz and desperate pretty-boy actor Troy McClure.

The program, which began in 1989, had recently announced it planned to end the life of a veteran character. Producers previously killed off Ned Flanders’ wife Maude in 2000. But Jean said today that Mrs. Krabappel was not one they had planned to eliminate. “Earlier we had discussed a potential storyline in which a character passed away,” Jean said. “This was not Marcia’s Edna Krabappel. Marcia’s passing is unrelated and again, a terrible loss for all who had the pleasure of knowing her.”

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/10/26/ma...ow-dies-at-70/

R.I.P.

I wonder if The Simpsons will now cancel plans for the character death