The 82-year-old passed away on May 9 in New York City, her family announced. No cause of death was disclosed.
Born in Pasadena on December 3, 1943, Harmon appeared in 21 Broadway productions throughout her career. Her stage roles ranged from her 1965 debut in You Can’t Take It With You to her final performance in 2011’s Other Desert Cities.
Per Playbill, her other Broadway credits include The School for Scandal (in both 1966 and a 1995 revival), Blithe Spirit (1987), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993), The Little Foxes (1997), The Deep Blue Sea (1998), Amy’s View (1999), The Glass Menagerie (2005), and Edward Albee’s Seascape (2005).
TV fans will recognize Harmon from her numerous appearances on a range of shows. According to IMDb, she appeared in episodes of Barnaby Jones, Dallas, St. Elsewhere, Law & Order, Oz, Rescue Me, and The Good Wife, among others.
However, it was on soap operas that Harmon landed her signature TV roles.
She was the lead actress in How to Survive a Marriage, a role she held for all 335 episodes between 1974 and 1975. The NBC soap followed Harmon’s character as she entered the workforce after divorcing her husband and beginning a custody battle for their daughter.
Harmon also played the antagonist Cathy Craig (facing off against heroine Viki Lord) on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live from 1976 to 1978. Her performance earned her a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1978.
In a nod to fans, she returned to One Life to Live in the early 1990s to play an attorney representing Erika Slezak’s Viki Lord. This was an ironic twist, as her previous character, Cathy, had kidnapped Viki’s baby years earlier.
Harmon also had brief roles on the soap operas Guiding Light, Another World, and Loving.