- Born
- Died
- Birth nameAudra Marie Lindley
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Audra Marie Lindley was born in Los Angeles, California into a show-business family; her father, Bert Lindley, was a stage and film actor. She got her start in Hollywood as a stand-in, which eventually progressed to stunt work. After a while, though, she found stunt work not to her liking and went to New York in her twenties to take her talent to the stage. Among her many Broadway plays were "On Golden Pond", "Playhouse 90", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "Horse Heavens", and many others. She was married twice--once to actor James Whitmore--and raised five children.
She appeared in many films and TV shows, and is probably best-known for her work as zany, randy, lovable doyenne Helen Roper, the sex-deprived wife of skinflint landlord Stanley Roper on Three's Company (1976); the Roper characters were later spun off into their own sitcom, The Ropers (1979)).
In the fall of 1997 she was doing recurring work on Cybill (1995) and Nothing Sacred (1997) when she died of complications from leukemia.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tommy R. Donovan <underdland@hotmail.com> (qv's & corrections by A. Nonymous)
- SpousesJames Whitmore(July 1971 - March 16, 1979) (divorced)Dr. Aaron Hardy Ulm Jr.(1943 - April 25, 1970) (his death, 5 children)
- ChildrenElizabeth BlalockAlice UlmWilliam UlmHerbert Lindley UlmJohn Francis Marcus Ulm
- ParentsElizabeth Frances Fisher
- After taping an episode of Cybill (1995), she admitted herself into a hospital as she felt mildly ill. Having been previously diagnosed with leukemia, and doing prescribed treatments, there was no immediate concern for her condition, and she was in high spirits during her stay. It was the following day when she unexpectedly died, and at her bedside was the script for the next episode of Cybill (1995), in which she had recently earned a recurring role.
- Buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California, USA. She is buried with her father, Bert Lindley. Her name does not appear on the marker.
- Her first husband, Aaron Hardy Ulm, died of a heart attack at 57 on April 25, 1970 while on vacation in Daytona Beach, Florida. He had been both a Harvard Medical School-educated doctor and a New York University Law School-educated lawyer.
- The daughter of show-business parents Herbert "Bert" Maxwell Lindley and Elizabeth Frances "Bessie" Fisher, Audra Lindley quit school at 15 and worked her way up as an extra, a stand-in, a stunt double, and eventually as a contract player with Warner Brothers.
- Survived by three of her five children: daughters Dr. Elizabeth Blalock of Laguna Beach, California and Alice Ulm of New York; and one son, William Ulm of Santa Barbara, California). Her son John Francis Marcus Ulm predeceased her in 1990, and her other son Herbert Lindley Ulm predeceased her in 1994.
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