Ellen Corby dies at 87; had role of Grandma Walton

LOS ANGELES -- Emmy-winning actress Ellen Corby, who played spinsters and prim neighbors but was best known as the grandmother on the hit 1970s series "The Waltons," has died at age 87, hospital officials said Friday.Corby, who was born Ellen Hansen in Racine, Wis., died Wednesday at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The actress was known to most U.S. television audiences as the loving, no-nonsense Grandma Walton, matriarch of a close-knit, Depression-era family in rural Virginia. She won three Emmys for her work in that role in 1973, 1975 and 1976.