After her last onscreen role in 1964, Maggie McNamara, who was Oscar nominated in 1954 for The Moon Is Blue, fell out of public view.
For the remaining 15 years of her life, she worked temp jobs as a typist to support herself.
Her obituary noted she had been writing scripts, including one titled The Mighty Dandelion, which was purchased by a production company at the time of her death.
On February 18, 1978, McNamara was found dead on the couch of her apartment in New York City. She had taken a deliberate overdose of sleeping pills and tranquilizers and left a suicide note on her piano.
According to police reports, she had a history of mental illness, and friends reported that she had suffered from acute depression.
