Jennifer Runyon, 'Ghostbusters' Actress, Dies at 65

Jennifer Runyon, the actress best known for her roles in “Ghostbusters” and the 1980s sitcom “Charles in Charge,” died Friday. She was 65.

Her family confirmed the death in a statement but did not disclose a cause. “This past Friday night our beloved Jennifer passed away,” the family said. “It was a long and arduous journey that ended with her surrounded by her family. She will always be remembered for her love of life and her devotion to her family and friends. I know from above she’s looking down on all of us with her beautiful smile. Rest in peace, our Jenn.”

Runyon built a career in the thick of 1980s Hollywood, working on projects that became fixtures of the era’s pop culture. Her connection to the entertainment industry that drives so much of Burbank’s economy makes her passing a local loss as much as a broader one.

Born in Chicago, Runyon made her film debut in 1980 with the holiday horror film “To All a Goodnight.” Four years later, she landed the role that would follow her for decades. In the 1984 blockbuster “Ghostbusters,” she played a college student on the receiving end of Dr. Peter Venkman’s dubious ESP experiment, opposite Bill Murray in one of the film’s most memorable early scenes. The sequence helped establish the movie’s comedic tone before the ghost-hunting operation ever got off the ground.

From there, she joined the cast of “Charles in Charge,” the sitcom starring Scott Baio as a college student working as a live-in housekeeper and caretaker for a suburban family. Runyon played Gwendolyn Pierce, a fellow student who also became Baio’s character’s love interest. The show ran through the late 1980s and remained a staple of syndication for years after.

Her television work extended well beyond that role. She played Cindy Brady in the 1988 reunion film “A Very Brady Christmas” and appeared on the daytime soap opera “Another World” from 1981 to 1983. Guest spots on “Quantum Leap” and “Murder, She Wrote” rounded out a resume that kept her working steadily through one of Hollywood’s most prolific decades.

Runyon married college basketball coach Todd Corman in 1991. The couple had two children.

In more recent years, Runyon stepped away from the spotlight and focused her energy on work with at-risk high school youth, according to a 2024 podcast interview. The pivot reflected the same quality her family described in their statement: a devotion to people over profile.

Her daughter, Bayley Corman, posted a tribute on Instagram with photographs of her mother. “All of the best parts of me came from you,” Corman wrote. “I would give anything for one more day together.”

Tributes from fans across social media focused on the “Ghostbusters” scene in particular, a brief but sharp piece of comedy that has circulated for more than four decades. For audiences who grew up watching the film on cable or VHS, her face is inseparable from it.

That kind of career, built in studios not far from here, across soundstages in the San Fernando Valley and on backlots that are still running today, is exactly the kind of work the local industry sustains. The actors who fill supporting roles in beloved films and long-running television shows don’t always get obituaries that match their cultural footprint. Runyon deserves one.

She was 65.