Hot News: Carol Ann Susi, Unseen Actress on 'Big Bang Theory,' Is Dead at 62

Carol Ann Susi, a character actress who was seen on numerous television shows but who was best known for a role in which she was only heard - the always off-screen mother of a character on the CBS sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory' - died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 62.

The cause was cancer, her agent, Pamala Ellis-Evenas, said.

Although never on camera and heard in fewer than a quarter of the episodes, Ms. Susi's character, Mrs. Wolowitz, was an important element in the success of 'The Big Bang Theory.'

Mrs. Wolowitz's son, Howard, played by Simon Helberg, is an engineer and a friend of the show's main male characters, the brilliant but socially awkward physicists Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki). Until shortly after marrying his longtime girlfriend at the end of the show's fifth season (it is now in its eighth), Howard lived with his mother, whose raspy, booming voice was frequently heard haranguing, complaining to or otherwise making life miserable for her nerdy son.

'It didn't bother me that they'd never show Howard's mother,' Ms. Susi said in an interview with the Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer in 2012. She said that Chuck Lorre, one of the show's creators and executive producers, asked her shortly after casting her, ' 'You don't mind not seeing the hair and makeup people for the next 10 years?' '

'And I said, 'Not at all, as long as I get paid.' '

Asked where Mrs. Wolowitz's full-throated voice came from, Ms. Susi said, 'It just hit me that they wanted someone who was screaming at him all the time, so that's what I did.'

'The Big Bang Theory' is the highest-rated comedy on television and one of the most successful series in syndication. CBS announced this year that it was renewing the show for three more seasons. The producers have not said if the role of Mrs. Wolowitz will be recast or if the character's death will be written into the show.

Ms. Susi (pronounced Susie) was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 2, 1952, and moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s after studying acting at the HB Studio in Manhattan. Her first credited TV role was as an office intern in three episodes of the supernatural comedy-drama 'Kolchak: The Night Stalker' in 1974. Later she appeared on 'Seinfeld,' 'Cheers,' 'Six Feet Under,' 'Grey's Anatomy' and other series, and in small roles in 'Death Becomes Her,' 'My Blue Heaven' and other movies. She also appeared in several Los Angeles stage productions.

She is survived by a brother, Michael.

Post By http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/arts/television/carol-ann-susi-unseen-actress-on-big-bang-theory-is-dead-at-62.html