Roseanna Christiansen, The Jeffersons actor, passes away at 71

Roseanna Christiansen, who served as Teresa, the maid, for the final nine seasons of the wildly popular CBS primetime soap opera "Dallas", has passed away. Teresa looked after the Ewing family's expansive Southfork estate. She clocked in at 71.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, her husband, Steven Rizzo, informed that Christiansen passed away on July 14 at Antelope Valley Medical Center in Lancaster, California. The reason for death was not disclosed. Christiansen began appearing in David Jacobs' television series in 1982 for the sixth season and stayed until its fourteenth and final season in 1991. She made an appearance in 112 episodes, with Tony Garcia`s butler Raoul lending a helping hand.

She portrayed a different maid on three episodes of the popular CBS sitcom "The Jeffersons" from 1981 just before Dallas. After Florence (Marla Gibbs) left, George (Sherman Hemsley) and Louise (Isabel Sanford) recruited her character, Carmen. Gibbs had really left the show to appear in her own spinoff, "Checking in", but the sitcom only lasted four episodes, which allowed Gibbs to return to her position as the Jeffersons` maid.

Roseanna Campos, the fourth of four children, was born on March 11, 1951, at Bellevue Hospital in New York. When she was 9 years old, she and her brother Victor performed in an off-Broadway play.

She received her high school diploma from Mater Christi High School in Astoria, Queens, in 1969, and in 1973, she relocated to Los Angeles to pursue her acting ambitions. She got her first significant break with "The Jeffersons".Christiansen and Rizzo got married in June 1989 after meeting at a bible study in Culver City, close to the Sony studios where "Dallas" was recorded.

Their kids Josiah and Grace, as well as her sister Elba, are still alive. In Crowley, Texas, the Heritage of Faith Christian Center had a memorial ceremony on Saturday. Christiansen was both an acting coach and a licenced clergyman. Throughout her career, she mentored countless students through her school Action! Acting, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter."

Many of her students refer to their private sessions as their therapy sessions," her husband said. "Though in years her life was too short, she spent enough time here to plant the seeds of love, encouragement and beauty into everyone she met."