The character actress “best known for playing the next-door neighbor Millie Helper on ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ died Tuesday of cancer in Los Angeles,” reports Variety. Ann Morgan Guilbert was 87.

Variety adds, “Although she appeared on dozens of shows over her four-decades-long career, Guilbert’s defining turn began in 1961 on ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ and lasted for 61 episodes. Her character, Millie, was best friends with Mary Tyler Moore’s character, Laura, and appeared in all five seasons of the sitcom.”

Notes the Associated Press, “In the 1990s [Guilbert] was a regular on the sitcom ‘The Nanny,’ on which she played Fran Drescher’s feisty grandmother, Yetta.

“She was in Nicole Holofcener’s 2010 movie ‘Please Give,’ a Sundance Film Festival selection, and on the HBO series ‘Getting On.’ Most recently she appeared on the CBS comedy ‘Life in Pieces.’”

Ann Morgan Guilbert in her role of Millie Helper on “The Dick Van Dyke Show”