American Character Actress. Thayer, the daughter of silent screen actress Louise Gibney, will best be remembered for her iconic restaurant scene opposite Jack Nicholson in 1970’s ‘Five Easy Pieces’, which has come to be known as the “chicken salad scene”. She made her film debut in 1952’s ‘Texas City’ and over the next five decades, would have roles in such films as ‘Jennifer’ (1953), ‘The Beast with a Million Eyes’ (1955), ‘Freckles’ (1960), ‘Police Nurse’ (1963), ‘The Shakiest Gun in the West’ (1968), ‘Skyjacked’ (1972), ‘Smoke in the Wind’ (1975), ‘Buddy, Buddy’ (1981) and ‘Frankie and Johnny’ (1991). She appeared in dozens of TV shows, among them ‘I Led 3 Lives’, ‘The Lone Wolf’. ‘Medic’, ‘The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin’, ‘Dr. Christian’, ‘Dragnet’, ‘Wagon Train’, ‘The Californians’, ‘Johnny Ringo’ ‘Death Valley Days’ and ‘That Girl’. Thayer died at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Retirement Home after battling Alzheimer’s disease for five years. (bio by: Louis M.)