Actress Shelley Morrison, who played maid on ‘Will & Grace, dies at 83

Shelley Morrison, a character actress best known for playing the feisty servant Rosario Salazar on “Will & Grace,” has passed on, publicist Lori DeWaal tells CNN.

Morrison passed on Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from a heart attack at 83 years old, DeWaal said.

Morrison’s character Rosario was the simple Salvadoran maid to socialite Karen Walker, played by Megan Mullally, in the original run of “Will & Grace” on NBC from 1999 to 2006. Karen was companions with a lawyer, Will, and interior designer, Grace, who shared a New York City apartment.

“Rosario is one of my all-time favorite characters,” Morrison said in a biography released by her agent. “She reminds me a lot of my own mother, who loved animals and children, but she would not suffer fools.”

“It is very significant to me that we were able to show an older, Hispanic woman who is bright and smart and can hold her own,” she said.

She was born as Rachel Mitrani on October 26, 1936, in the Bronx to Jewish Spanish parents, as indicated by the biography. Spanish was her first language.

She worked for over six decades, a visitor featuring in excess of 150 TV series, as indicated by IMDd.com. Other than her role on “Will and Grace,” Morrison was likely best known for playing Sister Sixto on “The Flying Nun” nearby Sally Field during the 1960s.

A portion of her roles remembered a Native American lady for “Mackenna’s Gold” in 1969 as well as minor Hispanic roles in movies like “Man and Boy” in 1971 and “Troop Beverly Hills” in 1989.

In 1973 she met Walter Dominguez, an essayist, whom she wedded. Through Dominguez, she got keen on Native American conventions, explicitly the Lakota Sioux, the biography said. The couple adopted six kids through a conventional Native American ceremony, the biography said. Dominguez, the kids, and various grandkids endure her.

She’d struggled health issues throughout the years and was a breast and lung cancer survivor.

An announcement released by DeWaal stated: “Shelley’s greatest pride as an actress was in playing the indomitable Rosario, in a comedy series that furthered the cause of social equity and fairness for LGBTQ people. She also took pride in portraying a strong, loving yet feisty Latina character. She believed that the best way to change hearts and minds was through comedy.”