Veteran Voice Artist Morgan Lofting Dies At 81

Veteran voice actor Morgan Lofting is no more. She was most recognised for her role as the Baroness, the vicious Cobra senior intelligence officer who caused mayhem in the G.I. Joe animated series and films. As per The Hollywood Reporter, Lofting died on Wednesday at her home in Burbank, her agents Nery Lemus and Christopher Arsaga of CelebWorx announced.

"As one of the 10 founding actors at our agency, she meant the world to us and our company," they said in a statement.

The voice actress also portrayed Aunt May and the Black Cat for a 1981-82 Spider-Man series and Moonracer and Firestar for a 1985 Transformers series, and she did voice work on the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring Total Recall (1990), too.

Lofting came up with a European accent for the dark-haired Baroness, a sexy master of disguise and expert in weapons and hand-to-hand combat who sported black-rimmed eyeglasses and a tight black leather outfit.

She voiced the terrorist in G.I. Joe miniseries in 1983, '84 and '89; for four seasons of two series that aired in 1985-86 and 1990-91; in the 1986 TV movie G.I. Joe: Arise, Serpentor, Arise!; and in 1987's straight-to-video G.I. Joe: The Movie.

Born in Cincinnati on February 2, 1940, Lofting also appeared on four episodes of the CBS primetime soap Knots Landing in 1986-87 and in the 1988 film The Night Before, starring Keanu Reeves and Lori Loughlin.

In 1989, she went back to college to finish her bachelor's degree and then earned her master's in history at Cal State Northridge. She later found a love of "bartending with books," as she called it, as a librarian.

She returned to voice acting in 2013 by playing the former villain Fistina on Ben 10: Omniverse, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Lofting, 84, is survived by her brother, Tim, his wife, Lynn, and their son, Brian; her son, Justin, and his wife, Stacie; and her grandchildren, Zac and Ellie.