'Caddyshack' actress Cindy Morgan felt 'world was against her’ before her death in Lake Worth Beach
An indepth look into the final troubled years of a one-time Hollywood starlet
SEVEN WEEKS BEFORE she was found dead in her Lake Worth Beach apartment, Cindy Morgan gave her final starring performance.
For three days in November 2023, the former starlet flashed her smile as celebrity guest of the Houston Arcade Expo, an annual showcase of more than 300 classic pinball machines and video games.
From a table in a Marriott convention hall, she signed autographs, shared Hollywood gossip and posed for photos with fans still smitten with Lacey Underall and Dr. Lora Baines/Yori, the beguiling characters she played, respectively, in two of the 1980s’ biggest films, “Caddyshack” and “Tron.’’
The gig paid $3,000, money Morgan desperately needed. And it offered an attractive perk — an all-expenses-paid weekend escape from the turmoil consuming her life at home in Lake Worth Beach.
She was 72 and living with her dog and two cats in a room she rented in a house a block west of the FEC railroad tracks on the city’s north end. She wasn’t getting along with her landlord, roommate and neighbors. She told friends she didn’t feel safe and was being stalked.
Her driver’s license had been suspended in September; she failed to pay a $166 fine for making an improper lane change on Lucerne Avenue downtown a month earlier. (The citation said her 1998 Pontiac collided with another car.)
She was fighting in court with her previous landlord, who sued her for more than $25,000 for unpaid rent and repairs in the Delray Beach condo she was evicted from in August 2022.
She was estranged from her family. And she was struggling to make ends meet, a plight that had become a recurring theme after her once-promising acting career lost momentum.
Instead of retiring to Beverly Hills or Malibu, she was crashing with friends or in rentals she could barely afford, at times wearing out her welcome, while she sought to rekindle her celebrity.
In a way, she embodied the tragedy of “Sunset Boulevard,” the 1950 film about a one-time star, forgotten and down-and-out, who dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen. Except in Morgan’s case, she wasn't entirely forgotten.
“I hope Cindy Morgan knew that in many ways she was (and is) the heart of ‘Tron’ fandom,’’ one admirer wrote in a tribute zine after her death. “It’s the passion and care Cindy had for her characters that make our fandom what it is today.’’
As the Chicago Tribune wrote in January, “In another life, she might have been Jennifer Lawrence.’’
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