Bartlet4America News Archive

‘West Wing’ character's death stuns followers

By CHARLIE MCCOLLUM
San Jose Mercury News

If an obit was to be written about what took place on Wednesday night's "The West Wing," it would go something like this:

Dolores Landingham, longtime personal secretary to President Josiah Bartlet, died Wednesday. The cause of death was given as a car accident in Washington, D.C. But it is believed that Mrs. Landingham actually died of a plot twist by Aaron Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing." Memorial services are still pending.

Wednesday, Sorkin killed off Mrs. Landingham, a relatively obscure character who has been with the series since its first episode. The character, played by veteran television actress Kathryn Joosten, did not appear in every show and rarely had more than a few lines, but her passing — which came out of nowhere toward the end of Wednesday's episode — touched a nerve with "West Wing" fans.

"How can they kill off a sweet old lady like that?" said Joyce Genevais of Sunnyvale in one of two dozen e-mail messages sent to the Mercury News on Thursday. "She was wonderful."

"Why kill off a good character? She was the only one who could talk back to Bartlet when he became snotty," said William Templeton of San Jose in another message.

Mrs. Landingham — even the president never used her first name — had always been a favorite with the devoted followers of "The West Wing," a romance-fantasy about life in the White House which last year won the Emmy for best drama. In a series filled with high-powered politicians and driven bureaucrats, she was the one who reminded the president to take his medicine, to eat right and not to act uppity.

"She didn't have a lot of lines, but she had really good ones. And she was down-to-earth," said Lisa Marks of Palo Alto in her message.

The outpouring of grief clearly caught NBC, Sorkin's office and Warner Bros., which produces the series, by surprise. About all that they would say about the death was that this was not a case of art imitating life and that actress Joosten was alive and well.

Other than that, questions about why Mrs. Landingham was killed off and how the death will shape next week's season finale went unanswered.