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Markie Post passes away at age 70 after years-long battle with cancer

Markie Post has passed away at the age of 70.

The actress, known for her roles in the likes of Something About Mary and the 80s sitcom Night Court, died on Saturday after a three year, ten month cancer battle, as reported by Deadline.

Post's longtime manager Ellen Lubin Sanitsky confirmed the news to the outlet. 

Post's death comes less than a month after the passing of her Night Court co-star Charlie Robinson who played a legal clerk on the series.

Robinson's manager attributed his death to metastatic adenocarcinoma, plus septic shock that caused him to suffer cardiac arrest with multisystem organ failures.

Post grew up in an intellectual family - her father was a scientist whose work ranged from nuclear fusion to magnetic levitation and her mother was a poet.

She was born in Palo Alto, California in 1950 and raised in the Bay Area alongside two siblings, ultimately going to Lewis And Clark College in Portland.

Her showbiz career began on the game show circuit with shots like being a dealer on a program called Card Sharks hosted by Jim Perry.

Early in her professional life she also worked with the late Alex Trebek - she was an associate producer on the game show Double Dare which he hosted.

'I wrote questions for Family Feud and I found prizes for Price Is Right and I researched Split Second - I learned more researching that game show than I did in four years of college,' she joked on late-night TV years later. 

As her career continued through the 1970s she remained on TV but drifted from game shows into acting with guest spots on multiple iconic series of the era.

She scored roles on Buck Rodgers In The 25th Century, The Love Boat, Barnaby Jones and The A-Team among others.

Her first shot as a series regular was on The Fall Guy, a show starring Lee Majors as a bounty hunter whose day job is as a stuntman.

Post portrayed a bail bondswoman called Terri Shannon on the program, which she acted on from 1982 until 1985.

Then she joined Night Court during season three, essaying her best-remembered role as the character of kindhearted public defender Christine Sullivan.

Christine was part of a love triangle on the show between the judge Harry (Harry Anderson) and prosecutor Dan (John Larroquette).

Post confessed in an interview with Patch years later that she 'was disappointed' that her character did not end up with Harry.

'Yeah, the fact is they were sort of hooking me up with John. It was weird. He followed me. He realized I was the love of his life,' she said. 

She was on Night Court from 1985 until 1992 and then went straight to the sitcom Hearts Afire from 1992 until 1995.

Created by Linda Bloodworth-Thommason, the show starred Post as the wife of a character played by Three's Company icon John Ritter.

The show was initially fiercely political as it was about a burgeoning between Post's leftwing character and Ritter's rightwing one in Washington, DC. 

'It was the best thing I had ever done, the best scripts I had ever gotten to do, the best star,' said Post of the show's original incarnation. 

'I loved John Ritter. I loved that I was a chain smoker. I loved that I was a world traveling journalist who was down on her luck and had to live in his guestroom and fall in love with him in the most beautiful, romantic way.'

However the show was eventually rejiggered to reset it in a Southern town and soften its political edge, a move Post found 'heartbreaking.'

She said the change occurred 'because CBS wanted it that way and Linda wanted to keep the show on the air. That's what they had to do and she kept it as pure as she could but it was just never the same.'

As the years went on she continued to star in movies and TV, with film roles including There's Something About Mary and the 2007 comedy Cook Off!.

Post also continued with guest shots on such hit shows as Scrubs - playing the mother of Sarah Chalke's character - and 30 Rock - playing herself.  

As far as her personal life was concerned she had a brief marriage in the early 1970s to her college sweetheart Stephen Knox.

Her longer lasting marriage was to actor and writer Michael A. Ross with whom she welcomed daughters Kate and Daisy.  

Reference: Daily Mail: Dailymail.com Reporter