Cindy Morgan, who played Lacey Underall alongside Chevy Chase in “Caddyshack” and also starred in “Tron,” has died at 69. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office told TheWrap in a statement that Morgan had been found dead on Dec. 30 at 10:52 p.m. local time in her home.
A woman identified as her roommate told deputies that she’d returned from a holiday visit and hadn’t seen Morgan since returning, but that she knocked on Morgan’s door and no one responded, according to the statement. She also told law enforcement that she “thought there was a strong odor coming from her room.” The last time she’d seen Morgan alive, according to the roommate, was on Dec. 19.
Her cause of death remains unknown, but no foul play is suspected, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. In a cryptic post on Dec. 17, she wrote on Instagram and X, “All I want for Christmas is a safe place to live! 🎄I’ve got two weeks.” She shared images of texts from someone that read, “Two weeks is the end of the month. Your agent contacted me and said you would be out and made arrangements for you to move.”
Morgan appeared to respond that she had no agent and that the person who identified themselves as such “is a fraud who got hold of me because I’m famous,” adding, “He has no paperwork, no right and has been turned into the FBI.” The person she texted with responded, “I don’t have time for [this] Cindy I just need my place.”
In addition to 1980 comedy “Caddyshack” and 1982 sci-fi film “Tron,” she starred in “Galaxis” and “Silent Fury,” as well as on TV shows such as “Falcon Crest.” She also guest starred on “The Love Boat.”
Morgan was born Cynthia Ann Cichorski on Sept. 29, 1954, in Chicago, Illinois. As the first of her family to attend college, she studied communications at Northern Illinois University and worked at the school’s radio station. She adopted the last name Morgan after a commercial station asked her to report the news for them.
After finishing school, Morgan worked as a weather reporter in Rockford, Illinois, before she moved to Chicago and worked as a DJ for WSDM. She eventually began to work at car shows for Fiat, which brought her to Los Angeles, where she began shooting commercials before snagging her “Caddyshack” role.
Morgan once admitted that she “was not a good speaker” when she first attended school, but that “My professor suggested communication as a major, and that got me into broadcasting. I was making a $135 a week doing morning drive in a major market, and when nobody would let me do commercials I said, ‘I’m going to L.A.’”
Morgan later said that, even though “Caddyshack” wasn’t an instant hit, its “timeless quality” is what helped it stand the test of time. “It has a timeless quality about it, because we were really having the best time possible. You can’t fake that,” she told NBC. “We were lucky enough to be surrounded by four of the funniest men on the planet: Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield. And we were struck by comedy lightning.”
She also revealed that her favorite scene in the movie wasn’t scripted. Morgan said, “I love watching the scene where I ask Chevy to ‘Sing me a love song.’ It wasn’t in the script, wasn’t rehearsed or even discussed ahead of time. Chevy plays a few bars, and then he snorts the salt. You can see me take a couple of beats while I realize what’s happening, and that this would be a scene in the film. I had a big wad of gum in my mouth, and blew a bubble at him.”
In 1982, Morgan landed a role in “Tron.” At the time, the movie was part of Disney’s strategy to change its image. Morgan told Retro Junk that the cast was aware the movie was “groundbreaking” but that filming it wasn’t as advanced as some might think.
“People often assumed it was shot green screen or blue screen. It was not. In the ‘Tron’ world scenes we were shot in black and white in very uncomfortable and I felt unflattering costumes,” she said. “I found it challenging to make something that was so highly conceptual REAL for me, or otherwise it wouldn’t read well on the screen. Side note: There were video games on the set to inspire us.”
Outside of Hollywood, Morgan worked with military veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
The news of Morgan’s death was first reported by TMZ.
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