Patricia Benoit Dead: Wally Cox Sweetheart on ‘Mister Peepers’ Was 91

Patricia Benoit, who played Nancy Remington, the sweetheart and eventual wife of Wally Cox’s character on the 1950s NBC sitcom Mister Peepers, has died. She was 91.

Benoit died Monday at her home in Port Chester, New York, her family announced.

NBC’s Mister Peepers, broadcast live from a New York theater for three seasons from July 1952 to June 1955, starred Cox (later the voice of the superhero Underdog and a Hollywood Squares regular) as the mild-mannered Robinson Peepers, a science teacher at Jefferson City Junior High. Benoit’s Nancy was a nurse and the object of Peepers’ awkward affection.

In a highly anticipated television moment, the two were married near the end of the second season, with the new husband and wife on the cover of TV Guide in May 1954.

Born on Feb. 21, 1927, in Fort Worth, Texas, Benoit attended Texas State College before moving to New York City when she was 19. She studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, appeared on a 1950 episode of Believe It or Not and had a career breakthrough when she starred as Melvyn Douglas’ long-lost daughter in the 1951-52 Broadway comedy Glad Tidings.

Benoit also appeared on Broadway in 1956 in Time Limit opposite Arthur Kennedy and in Middle of the Night with Edward G. Robinson.

She starred as a divorcee on the short-lived 1958 NBC soap opera Today Is Ours and later worked on CBS’ As the World Turns as well.

Benoit moved to Croton-on-Hudson, New York, in 1961 and left acting a few years later to raise her children, her family noted. Survivors include her sons Jeremy and Nicholas; grandchildren Nicholas, Michael and Melissa; great-granddaughter Ella; and sister Doris.

Patricia Benoit, Wally Cox’s Sweetheart on ‘Mister Peepers,’ Dies at 91

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