'Please Don't Eat the Daisies' star Mark Miller passes away at 97

Mark Miller, who portrayed the patriarch of a castle-dwelling family on the 1960s NBC sitcom 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies' and co-wrote the Keanu Reeves-starring romantic drama 'A Walk in the Clouds' passed away at the age of 97.

Mark Miller, who portrayed the patriarch of a castle-dwelling family on the 1960s NBC sitcom 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies' and co-wrote the Keanu Reeves-starring romantic drama 'A Walk in the Clouds' passed away at the age of 97. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Miller passed away on Friday in Santa Monica from natural causes, according to a family spokesperson. His daughter and the Tony-nominated actress Penelope Ann Miller are among the survivors.

The classic family movie Savannah Smiles, which was inspired by and named for Miller's youngest daughter, was another project for him to write, produce, and star in. It tells the tale of a runaway girl named Bridgette Andersen who creates an impromptu family with two escaped criminals named Miller and Donovan Scott. In the 1965-1967 television series 'Please Don't Eat the Daisies', which ran for two seasons and 58 episodes, the native Texan played Jim Nash, a college lecturer, opposite Patricia Crowley, a newspaper writer. They are the parents of a sheepdog and four boisterous lads (Jeff and Joe Fithian twins, Brian Nash, and Kim Tyler).

Reeves, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, and Anthony Quinn starred in A Walk in the Clouds (1995), a box office success for 20th Century Fox with a $50 million global take. It was also a critical success and was based on the 1942 Italian film Four Steps in the Clouds. Roger Ebert called it "a wonderful romantic vision, aflame with passion and bittersweet longing." Miller, who was born on November 20th, 1924 in Houston, had his training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. His first professional role was in Noel Coward's Private Lives at the Casino Playhouse in Newport, Rhode Island, where he co-starred with classmate Grace Kelly. (Miller and Kelly dated for two years before deciding to stay friends for life.)

He was then chosen by playwright Philip Barry to play Sandy Lord opposite Sarah Churchill, the daughter of Winston Churchill, in The Philadelphia Story. William Inge was drawn to Miller, who appeared in more than 30 plays, and waited until the actor was free to start the first Bus Stop Broadway touring company. In it, Miller starred opposite Elaine Stritch as the cowboy Bo.

Just before opening a North American tour of Dark at the Top of the Stairs with Joan Blondell, Miller married journalist Beatrice Ammidown, and they honeymooned while travelling with the production throughout Canada and the U.S. Miller married the actor Barbara Stanger a year after he and Ammidown split up, and the two of them worked together on a number of projects, including Christmas Mountain: The Story of a Cowboy Angel (1981), in which he co-starred with his wife and Slim Pickens.

Miller and Stanger separated in 1998, and he moved back to the Golden State in 2013 to be closer to his kids from both marriages--the late Gabe Miller from his second marriage, as well as Savannah, Penelope Ann, and Marisa Miller from his first. He established Gypsy Moon Productions in his later years. His most recent screenplay, The Heart of the Storm, was written in the vein of A Walk in the Clouds and tells the story of two people who, despite their best efforts to avoid it, end up falling in love after being pushed together during a cyclone.

At the time of his death, Miller was working on a remake of Savannah Smiles with producer Rob Moran and Bay Point Media at Atlanta-based Trilith Studios, his family said. (ANI)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)