Glenne Headly of Monk, The Night Of, more dead at 63

Very sad news to pass along today. Glenne Headly, a two-time Emmy nominee whose career spanned far more than just television, has passed away at the age of 63. An immediate cause of death is not known at present.

In a statement to Deadline, her family passed along the following message to many of her friends around the globe:

“It is with deep sorrow that we confirm the passing of Glenne Headly. We ask that her family’s privacy be respected in this difficult time.”

Headly is probably best known to many viewers out there for such films as Dick Tracy, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Mr. Holland’s Opus, but the thing about entertainment is that everyone has their own thing in which they will remember someone by. For someone like us, who spent most of our teenage years watching procedurals of various types, she will always be remembered best as Karen Stottlemeyer of USA’s Monk, the one-time wife of Ted Levine’s Leland. He was the leader of the crime-solving team in San Francisco who Adrian Monk worked with while dealing with his obsessive-compulsive tendencies. She appeared in a handful of episodes of that show over the years, and more recently graced several episodes of HBO’s The Night Of in the role of Alison Crowe. One of her notable Emmy nominations came for the 1989 Lonesome Dove miniseries. She had an opportunity to be a part of several different things that all defined different eras of television. She didn’t crave the spotlight in any of them, but should be remembered very fondly for her work throughout them.

Headly leaves behind a tremendous legacy of great work, and entertainment that appealed to all fans of entertainment. One of the things that is the most remarkable about her is perhaps her ability to be versatile and to welcome such a thing. She did not limit herself to doing any one thing, and seemed to have a wonderful sense of balance between what she did at work and what she chose to do for herself. These are the people who should be inspirations for anyone within this business. She was private beyond her work, but that shows further her ability to compartmentalize.

Our thoughts and condolences go out to Headly’s family, and everyone who knew her. Feel free to share some of your own thoughts and memories about her in the attached comments. (Photo: USA.)