E.J. Peaker, an American actress and singer best known for playing hat shop assistant Minnie Fay opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1969 film Hello, Dolly! and for co-starring with Robert Morse in the short-lived ABC musical comedy series That's Life, has died at the age of 82. Her husband, pilot and musician Scott Rosen, confirmed she died on 16 May at their home in Las Vegas after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her death caps a career that peaked in a remarkably busy period in August 1968, when she was completing her big-screen debut in Hello, Dolly! while simultaneously beginning work on That's Life.

Born Edra Jeanne Peaker in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1944, she grew up in Pueblo, Colorado, before studying at the University of New Mexico and, on a scholarship, the University of Vienna. She began her career on stage, touring with Bye Bye Birdie and understudying in the original Broadway production of Barefoot in the Park, before moving into television with a Screen Gems contract that included roles in shows such as That Girl and The Flying Nun. She was selected from more than 200 contenders for the role of Minnie Fay in Hello, Dolly!, and went on to star as Gloria Quigley in That's Life, a critically praised but unrenewed ABC series that ran for 26 episodes.