CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Margaret Whitton, who played Cleveland Indians owner Rachel Phelps in the 1989 film "Major League," has died.
Whitton died Sunday at her home in Florida from cancer, her husband told the New York Times. She was 67.
For the past 25 years, Indians fans have loved to hate Whitton's character in "Major League," a classic sports film that is so cherished in these parts that when Charlie Sheen agreed to appear in character at Game 7 of the World Series it was the lead story on all local newscasts.
Whitton played a former Vegas showgirl who tries to sabotage the Indians season so she can move them to Miami. The team, a mishmash of washed-up veterans, unproven players, an ex-con and maybe even a dead guy, defies the odds and starts winning.
At one point, after she's turned off the heat and makes them travel in a prop plane, the team is motivated by a cardboard cutout of Whitton's character, which they peel off a section a at a time after every victory.
Before "Major League," Whitton's first onscreen splash came two years earlier, playing the boss's wife who seduces Michael J. Fox in "The Secret of My Success." She reprised her role as Phelps in the much less memorable sequel, "Major League II," in 1994.
Whitton acted in a few other films, notably "Ironweed," "The Best of Times," "9 1/2 Weeks" and "The Man Without a Face" before returning to Broadway and trying her hand at TV. She eventually got into directing theater and film, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
But Whitton, a huge baseball fan who followed the Yankees, will always be remembered for "Major League." Days before she died, Whitton received a baseball from a fan of the movie hoping for an autograph, the New York Times reported.