Markie Post, the effervescent actress known for her roles on the television series “Night Court” and “The Fall Guy” and the movie “There’s Something About Mary” during a career that spanned four decades, died on Saturday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 70.
Her death was confirmed by her manager, Ellen Lubin Sanitsky, who provided a statement from Ms. Post’s family specifying that the cause of death was cancer.
Ms. Post had continued to act for nearly four years after her initial cancer diagnosis and while undergoing chemotherapy treatments that she referred to as her “side job,” her family said.
Since her diagnosis, she had worked on a Lifetime Christmas movie and had a recurring guest role on the ABC series “The Kids Are Alright.”
Frequently cast in daffy roles that emphasized her comedic timing, Ms. Post became a television fixture in the 1980s.
She appeared on “The Love Boat,” “The A-Team” and “Cheers” before landing a prominent role as a bail bondswoman on “The Fall Guy,” an action show about a stuntman, played by Lee Majors, who moonlights as a bounty hunter.
Her greatest success came on the sitcom “Night Court,” when she was cast as Christine Sullivan, the alluring and naïve public defender who was the romantic interest of Judge Harry T. Stone, played by Harry Anderson. The judge was not her only suitor, though. So was Dan Fielding, the lecherous prosecutor played by John Larroquette.
One of her co-stars on the show, Charlie Robinson, who played the pragmatic court clerk, died last month at 75.
In the 1990s, Ms. Post starred opposite John Ritter on “Hearts Afire,” a political sitcom in which she played a former journalist who went to work as a press aide for a Southern senator. Her father was played by Ed Asner, who paid tribute on Sunday to Ms. Post on Twitter.
Born on Nov. 4, 1950, in Palo Alto, Calif., Ms. Post began her career working on game shows, writing questions for “Family Feud,” finding prizes for “The Price Is Right” and doing research for “Split Second.”
“I learned more researching that game show than I did in four years of college,” Ms. Post said in an interview with Bill Tush on his show in the 1980s.
In 1998, Ms. Post was cast by the Farrelly brothers as the ditsy mother of Mary, the main character in “There’s Something About Mary,” who was played by Cameron Diaz.
Later in her career, Ms. Post’s acting credits included “Scrubs” and “Chicago P.D.”
Ms. Post is survived by her husband, Michael A. Ross; and two daughters, Kate Armstrong Ross, an actress, and Daisy Schoenborn, who said in their statement that Ms. Post exemplified kindness.
They described Ms. Post as “a person who made elaborate cakes for friends, sewed curtains for first apartments and showed us how to be kind, loving and forgiving in an often harsh world.”