Penelope Milford, who received an Oscar nomination for her supporting turn as Jane Fondas bohemian roommate in Hal Ashbys Coming Home and portrayed a silent-film star in Ken Russells Valentino, has died. She was 77.

Milford died Tuesday in an assisted living facility in Saugerties, New York, her sister, Candace Saint, told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death was not revealed.

Milford, who appeared twice on Broadway early in her career, also played the fiance of Don Murrays character in Franco Zeffirellis Endless Love (1981) and was the hippie Westerburg High School guidance counselor Pauline Fleming in Michael Lehmanns Heathers (1988). In Coming Home (1978), Milford portrayed Vi Munson, whose brother (Robert Carradine) has just returned home after just two weeks in Vietnam with severe emotional problems. Her friendship with Fondas Sally Hyde leads her roommate to volunteer at a Veterans Administration hospital.

The effervescent Milford landed one of Coming Homes four acting Oscar nominations, with Fonda and Jon Voight winning the best actress and best actor prizes and Bruce Dern getting nominated for his supporting turn. (Milford would lose out to Maggie Smith of California Suite.)

In 1977, she played silent-film star Lorna Sinclair in Valentino and shared a nude sex scene with Rudolph Nureyev in the biopic.

Born in St. Louis on March 23, 1948, Penelope Dale Milford graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois.

She made her big-screen debut as an extra in Maidstone (1970), written and directed by Norman Mailer, then appeared with Richard Gere in an off-Broadway production of the musical Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone.

In 1972, Milford joined the Broadway cast of Lenny, starring Sandy Baron as comedian Lenny Bruce, and three years later landed a Drama Desk nomination for her performance in the long-running Civil War musical Shenandoah. In his review of the latter, Clive Barnes in The New York Times called her fetching and noted that she sang with spirit.

Her rsum also included the films Man of a Swing (1974), The Last Word (1979), Take This Job and Shove It (1981), Cold Justice (1991), Normal Life (1996) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1996) and four acclaimed telefilms: 1980s Seizure: The Story of Kathy Morris, starring Leonard Nimoy, and The Oldest Living Graduate, starring Henry Fonda; 1982s Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story, starring Sondra Locke; and 1984s The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett.

Milford also ran an art gallery in Los Angeles in 1985-87; taught acting; performed on local stages; and was active in the Woodstock Christian Science church. She moved to Saugerties in 2003 to remodel a historic home.

Her brother Kim Milford Rocky in the original American stage production of The Rocky Horror Show and a singer in a band with guitarist Jeff Beck died of heart failure at age 37 in 1988.

She was briefly married in the 80s to poet Michael Lally. In addition to her sister, survivors include her brother, Douglas, and three nieces and nephews: Ollie, Amari and Correll.