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Joan Benedict Steiger, who was part of the original stock company for Candid Camera and later became the wife of actor Rod Steiger, died June 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke. She was 96.

Her death was announced by a family spokesperson.

As Joan Benedict, she got her start on TV during the medium’s early days, appearing in the 1950s on Candid Camera and The Steve Allen Show. She would go on to score dozens of TV credits with guest appearances in the 1970s on such series as The Smith Family, Apple’s Way, The Incredible Hulk and Fantasy Island, among others.

Later TV and film credits include The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, Hotel, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill and Dollhouse. She recurred on soap General Hospital as the character Edith Fairchild, and also appeared in Days of Our Lives and Capitol.

Born July 21, 1927, in Brooklyn,...

Joan Benedict, who starred on the original Steve Allen Show and Candid Camera and portrayed the tyrannical hotel queen Leona Helmsley in a one-woman stage show, has died. She was 96.

Benedict died June 24 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a stroke, a family spokesperson announced.

Benedict was married to actor John Myhers, who played personnel man Bert Bratt in the 1967 film adaptation of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, from 1962 until his 1992 death and to Oscar-winning actor Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, In the Heat of the Night) from 2000 until his death in 2002.

She then had a relationship with actor Jeremy Slate (Hell’s Angels ’69, One Life to Live) until he died in 2006 from esophageal cancer at 80.

“Both of my husbands, and my lifetime partner, Jeremy, were wonderful men who respected me as an actress,” she said in 2016. “They all died from different forms of cancer,...