Lynn Hamilton, who became a familiar presence in American living rooms in the 1970s playing Donna Harris, the elegant and unflinching girlfriend of Redd Foxx’s irascible Fred Sanford, on “Sanford and Son,” and Verdie Foster, a dignified matriarch, on “The Waltons,” died on Thursday at her home in Chicago. She was 95.
Her death was confirmed by her former manager and publicist, the Rev. Calvin Carson.
Before landing her breakout television roles, Ms. Hamilton had considerable experience onstage and onscreen. She made her Broadway debut in 1959 in “Only in America,” in a cast that also included Alan Alda. She appeared in John Cassavetes’s first film as a director, “Shadows” (1958); two films starring Sidney Poitier, “Brother John” (1971) and “Buck and the Preacher” (1972); and “Lady Sings the Blues,” the 1972 Billie Holiday biopic starring Diana Ross.
Still, almost no experience could have prepared her for working with Mr. Foxx, a hallowed comedian who grew up on the streets — he palled around Harlem with the young Malcolm X during their hustler days — and made his name with nightclub routines that were socially conscious and unapologetically dirty.
“Sanford and Son,” a groundbreaking NBC hit, broke racial barriers. A predominantly Black sitcom, it starred Mr. Foxx as Fred Sanford, a cantankerous and wholly unfiltered Los Angeles junk man, and Demond Wilson as Lamont, his sensible, long-suffering son.
Ms. Hamilton was originally cast, as a landlady, for only one episode during the show’s first season. She made enough of an impact to earn a regular role later that season as Donna, Fred’s girlfriend and, eventually, fiancée.
While she later described her character, a well-mannered nurse, as “Miss Priss,” her rendition of Donna was more than tough enough to keep Fred in line. (After a spat, Fred nicknamed her “Donna the Barracuda.”)
Mr. Foxx “always said, ‘You’re so dignified — I need someone dignified opposite me,’” she recalled in 2018 in an online interview with Big Meach, an Atlanta-based performer. “He was aware of his earthiness, shall we say?”
While she described Mr. Foxx as an “absolute genius,” Ms. Hamilton also said that he would sometimes arrive sleepless for script readings on a Monday morning before a shoot, having performed in Las Vegas the night before, and spend the first few days of preparation for that week’s taping clowning for the other actors.
Such behavior continued on set. “Sometimes he didn’t know the lines and he would ad lib,” she recalled, and even though “what he would say would be better than the script,” Ms. Hamilton and the other cast members found themselves “on pins and needles” trying to stay in character.
“I think I learned more about acting and staying in the scene,” Ms. Hamilton added, “than I could have learned in school.”
Alzenia Lynn Hamilton was born on April 25, 1930, in Yazoo City, Miss., the only child of Louis and Nancy Hamilton. As early as age 3, she announced her plans to become a movie star — a bold ambition for a Black girl growing up in the Mississippi River delta during the Great Depression.
The family eventually settled in Chicago Heights, a southern suburb of Chicago, where her early attempts to break into acting ran aground because of her race.
She joined the drama club at Bloom High School, but “they couldn’t cast me in anything because there weren’t any African American roles,” she said in a 2000 interview with the Southtown Star newspaper of Tinley Park, Ill. “Everybody was friendly enough, but they just didn’t know what to do with me.” Instead, she recalled, “I offered my services to help with the backstage production.”
Undeterred, she studied acting at the renowned Goodman Theater, then affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree. Even there, it was difficult to find roles, and instead she gained acting experience with an African American community theater group on the city’s South Side.
When Ms. Hamilton finally landed a role in a Goodman Theater production, playing a duchess, she was forced to wear whiteface makeup. “They couldn’t get the right color and one night I got excited and it started leaking onstage,” she told the Southtown Star.
Ms. Hamilton eventually moved to New York City. Among her Broadway appearances was “The Cool World” (1960), with a cast that also included James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. But the roles were not always plum. In “Face of a Hero” (1960), starring Jack Lemmon, her character was listed as “cleaning woman.”
By the end of the 1960s, she had turned her attention to the small screen; she popped up on shows like “Room 222,” “Mannix” and “Gunsmoke” before finding her big break on “Sanford and Son.”
She is survived by four grandchildren. Her husband, Frank S. Jenkins, a poet and playwright affiliated with the Black Arts movement, died in 2014.
In 1979, Ms. Hamilton appeared in four episodes of the mini-series “Roots: The Next Generations.” She worked steadily into the 2000s, including seven episodes as a judge on the Emmy-winning ABC law drama “The Practice.”
Aside from her playing opposite Mr. Foxx, she is best known for her recurring role on “The Waltons,” the popular family drama about a Depression-era brood in Appalachia, which ran for nine seasons on CBS starting in 1972.
“Miss Verdie, that was one of the roles I’m most proud of,” she told Big Meach. “When we first see her, she’s a successful and accomplished mother who had a good job and was well respected, but she couldn’t read.”
With fortitude and patience, Verdie learned to read under the tutelage of the Waltons’ eldest son, John-Boy (Richard Thomas), an aspiring writer. “She proved that you can improve yourself at any time in your life,” Ms. Hamilton said. “It opened up a whole new world for her.”
Alex Williams is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk.
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