Actress Paula Shaw, perhaps best known for her many appearances on TV’s The Hallmark Channel, where she starred on the series Cedar Cove and in multiple movies, died Sept. 10. She was 84.
She later memorably starred as Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees, in 2003 horror film Freddy vs. Jason.
For Hallmark, she was a recurring cast member, playing Charlotte Jeffers, in the first season of romantic drama Cedar Cove, which premiered in 2013. In addition, Shaw popped up in several of the channel’s signature feel-good films, such as Five Star Christmas, It Was Always You, and Hanukkah on Rye.
Julie Sherman Wolfe, writer of the latter, posted in her Instagram Story that the two had remained close since.
“So sad to hear about Paula Shaw’s passing,” her post read, according to PEOPLE. “We often chatted on FaceTime after she filmed Hanukkah on Rye. mostly about our shared heritage (and trying to figure out if we were related!) We never found out, but it didn’t matter. She will always be one of my honorary bubbies.”
Shaw had originally moved to L.A. from New York City in the 1960s to work on the stage, PEOPLE reported. She auditioned for storied acting coach Lee Strasberg, who extended an invitation to join The Actors Studio.
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Along with her many performances over the years, Shaw taught at the Esalen Institute, a nonprofit holistic retreat, which shared on its website that she “touched countless lives through The MAX, the Mastery, and her transformational work. Her legacy lives on in the communities she created and the lives she changed.”
Her agent, Jamie Levitt, told Entertainment Weekly that Shaw “loved making people laugh. She created ‘family’ in every work environment. She would often speak to me of making people in production laugh… the folks behind the scenes. She tried to make everyone’s lives a little better before she left them. She made my life better.”
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