Barbara Rush has died at the age of 97

She told Fox News Digital: "My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition. It's fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family."

The Golden Globe winner is also survived by her son Christopher Hunter, 71, - who she has from her marriage to late producer Jeffrey Hunter - but was not married at the time of her death, having divorced third and final husband Jim Gruzalski in 1973.

Barabara started her career on the stage in the late 1940s but signed with Paramount Pictures at the start of the following decade, where she starred in 'Flaming Feather' with Sterling Hayden and Victor Jory as well as James Mason in the 1956 drama film 'Bigger Than Life'.

In the 1970s, she returned to the theatre in 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' - a musical based on the life of the famed socialite who survived the 1912 disaster - and then appeared as M'Lynn in a 1980s touring production of 'Steel Magnolias' before it was made into a Hollywood film starring Julia Roberts, Sally Field and Dolly Parton,

Later on in her career, Barabra starred in the long-running soap opera 'All My Children' during the early 1990s but slowed down her career at the turn of the century.

She dabbled in theatre on and off until 2007 and in 2006 acted in the short film 'My Mother's Hairdo' before making her final on-screen appearance in the 2017 short 'Bleeding Hearts'.