Jean Lodge Dies: British Actor And Mother Of ‘Days Of Our Lives’ & ‘The Nanny’ Star Charles Shaughnessy Was 99
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- Jean Lodge died on August 5 at age 99, one day after her 99th birthday, with her death announced on Facebook by granddaughter Amy Shaughnessy, who said she passed 'quite quietly' in her sleep.
- Lodge played Queen Guinevere in the 1954 film 'The Black Knight' and appeared opposite Peter Cushing in 'The Hellfire Club' (1961), with her British film and TV career spanning the late 1940s through the mid-1960s.
- Charles Shaughnessy, her son, is best known for playing Shane Donovan on 'Days of Our Lives' and costarring with Fran Drescher on the sitcom 'The Nanny' (1993-1999).
- David Shaughnessy, her other son, has directed for 'Days of Our Lives,' 'The Young and the Restless,' and 'The Bold and the Beautiful,' and voiced characters in 'Big Hero 6' and 'Star Wars Rebels.'
- Lodge was married to Alfred Shaughnessy, chief writer of the 1970s British series 'Upstairs, Downstairs,' from 1948 until his death in 2005.
- Born Jean Margaret Lodge on August 4, 1927, in Hull, England, she is survived by five granddaughters and two great-grandchildren, per her family's statement.
Why it matters: Lodge's death closes a thread linking 1950s British cinema to American daytime TV royalty through her sons Charles and David Shaughnessy, and to a defining British TV era via her 57-year marriage to 'Upstairs, Downstairs' writer Alfred Shaughnessy.
