Actress Eileen Heckart, a gay favorite, dead at 82

Reuters reports that Oscar winner Eileen Heckart, a stage and screen actress equally comfortable with comedy and drama, died of cancer Monday at the age of 82 at her home in Norwalk, Conn. Heckart won an Oscar in 1972 for the film Butterflies Are Free, and she was known for performing in such Broadway classics as Picnic and Barefoot in the Park. Gay audiences will most fondly remember Heckart for her turn as alcoholic neighbor Hortense Daigle in the camp classic The Bad Seed as well as for her recurrent appearances as Aunt Flo on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.