Francine York Dead at 80

Francine York died on Friday, January 6.  Her TV credits included
Days of our Lives and General Hospital.

Actress Francine York died Friday morning at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, California, after a battle with cancer, her friend, television producer Pepper Jay, told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 80.

A native of Aurora, Minnesota, York appeared in numerous TV shows, from Rescue 8 in 1959 to The Mindy Project in 2015, with appearances in daytime soap operas along the way.

At age 17, the 5-foot-8 York was runner-up in the Miss Minnesota beauty pageant. She toured the U.S. modeling in department stores and landed in Northern California, where she finished second in the Miss San Francisco contest.

York was working as a showgirl at the popular Moulin Rouge nightclub on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood when she decided to purse acting. She studied under Jeff Corey and Jack Kosslyn and spotted by a producer who cast her as a duplicitous magazine editor in her film debut, Secret File: Hollywood (1962).