Judy Nugent, the former ’50s child actor who co-starred with Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession, Annette Funicello in the popular Annette serial on ABC’s The Mickey Mouse Club and flew in the arms of George Reeves’ Superman in a 1954 episode of The Adventures of Superman, died of October 26 cancer, surrounded by family at her ranch in Montana. She was 83.
Her death was announced in a family statement released by daughter-in-law Anne Lockhart, the Chicago Fire actor and daughter of Lost in Space star June Lockhart.
A Los Angeles native – she was the daughter of MGM prop man Carl Nugent – Nugent had already appeared in a handful of uncredited roles, including in the 1951 film Angels in the Outfield, when she landed her breakthrough role as Donna Ruggles in the 1949-52 TV series The Ruggles, an early family sitcom starring comic actor Charles Ruggles (Bringing Up Baby). Nugent played the twin sister of child actor Jimmy Hawkins (It’s A Wonderful Life).
After the cancelation of The Ruggles, Nugent landed guest shots on The Lone Ranger, in the film Ma and Pa Kettle At Home, and, in perhaps the role most fondly remembered by Baby Boomers, as Ann Carson, a blind girl who enters a Daily Planet contest to fly around the world with Superman in the 1954 Season 2 episode of Adventures of Superman. (Her eyesight is restored after Clark Kent/Superman uses his super vision to detect the cause of her blindness.)
That same year she appeared in Magnificent Obsession and on the TV series The Life of Riley. The following years brought additional screen credits (Lassie, There’s Always Tomorrow, The Girl Most Likely) and in 1958 she had a featured role The Mickey Mouse Club‘s Annette serial, playing Jet Maypen, best friend to star Funicello.
Small roles continued through the early 1960s – 77 Sunset Strip, Sugarfoot, Rawhide and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, among others – but she largely retired from acting after marrying Gunsmoke actor Buck Tayler, son of character actor Dub Taylor, in 1961. The couple, who had four children, divorced in 1981.
Nugent is survived by daughter Tiffany; sons Matt and Cooper; daughter-in-law Anne Lockhart and grandchildren Carlyle and Zane. She was preceded in death by son Adam, who was married to Lockhart and died in 1994 at age 27 in a motorcycle accident.