Rise to Fame
Theater awards first. Before most TV audiences knew her name, she'd already won the Drama Desk, Obie, and Theatre World Best Actress awards for The Sea Horse on the New York stage. A starring role in Norman Lear's 1975 TV adaptation of Hot L Baltimore didn't pan out, so she spent nearly three decades grinding through character parts: L.A. Law, Mystic Pizza, Edward Scissorhands, Erin Brockovich. CBS cast her as the housekeeper Berta in Two and a Half Men in 2003, and all that character work finally found its audience.
In the Spotlight
Berta made her famous, and the paycheck followed. By 2013, she was reportedly earning around $150,000 per episode on Two and a Half Men, which is what deadpan housekeeper work gets you on CBS's biggest sitcom. She picked up two Emmy nominations for the role (2005, 2007) and lost both. Her health declined after the show ended in 2015, and she died in October 2020 as the first of the main cast to go. The tributes from Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and creator Chuck Lorre all said the same thing: she was the one everyone on set actually liked.
Side Notes
She came up in the Circle Repertory Company in New York and walked away with three major theater awards before most of Hollywood noticed her. Back home in West Virginia, she'd started college studying political science before eventually landing on an off-Broadway stage. Her default character type, sarcastic women who could cut you down without changing expression, wasn't something she developed for TV. Chuck Lorre called her 'Chatty' on set and described her as 'a rock.' Twelve seasons on one of CBS's most chaotic productions, and that checks out.
Final Chapter
A photo Sheen posted after the news broke showed the two of them sharing a drink on set, captioned 'a shocking and painful loss.' Jon Cryer wrote that he was 'crying for the woman I'll miss.' Creator Chuck Lorre called her 'one of the greats' in a public statement and said he was privileged to call her a friend. Warner Bros. TV issued its own tribute the same day.