Denise Dowse, the busy actress who played Vice President Yvonne Teasley on Beverly Hills, 90210, Judge Rebecca Damsen on The Guardian and therapist Rhonda Pine on Insecure, has died.  It was 64.

Dowse’s death was announced Saturday on her Instagram account by her older sister Tracey Dowse, who praised her brother as “the most amazing sister, a flawless, brilliant actress, mentor and director.  She was my best friend and the last member of my family.”

On August 7, Tracey wrote on Instagram that her younger sister was hospitalized and in a coma caused by an “infectious form of meningitis.” 

On the big screen, Denise Dowse stood out as Ray Charles’ manager Marlene André in Ray (2004), starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx, and played another manager, this one based on a real-life Richmond (California) high school teacher. in Coach Carter (2005), starring Samuel L. Jackson.

She said these were among her favorite roles, as was her two-episode run in 2011-12 as Yvonne Burns, aunt of Shemar Moore’s Derek Morgan, on CBS’s Criminal Minds. 

Dowse has also done a lot of directing and was at the helm of Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story, starring Ledisi as the legendary gospel singer.  The film opened the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles in April.

Dowse recurred as West Beverly Hills High’s stern but compassionate vice president Teasley in 23 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, spanning the entire ten-year run (1990-2000) of the Fox hit.

She then made 32 appearances as Judge Damsen on the CBS drama The Guardian starring Simon Baker from 2001-04 and six as Molly’s (Yvonne Orji) therapist in the final three seasons of Issa Rae’s Insecure on HBO.

Denise Yvonne Dowse was born in Honolulu on February 21, 1958. Her father had a career in the US Navy and her family moved almost every two years.  Meanwhile, her mother taught school.

Denise Dowse in the 2005 ‘Coach Carter’ Paramount/Courtesy Everett collection In 1976 while at WT Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, she auditioned for a position in the Up With People touring performance group while also applying to the US Naval Academy (it was the first year women were accepted there).

“Just when I was going to get it [Academy] physical training test, Up With People said, ‘We need an answer, we need an answer,’ and I had to make a choice,” Dowse recalled in a 2015 interview. “I was doing navy for my dad or I was going to do the theater for me;  And I chose me.”

After graduating in 1980 from Norfolk State University and living in Germany with her family for more than seven years — also working in theater abroad — she moved to Los Angeles when she was 30.  She landed gigs as an extra, which led to her landing a line in a 1989 episode of the NBC sitcom ALF.

“He got me into the union and then I got an agent,” he said.

While building her acting career, she worked as an operator for an answering service and for five years as an office manager at a Westwood law firm.

Dowse was also a recurring character on NBC’s Built to Last in 1997, ABC’s Secrets and Lies in 2015-16, and Bravo’s Imposters in 2017-18.

Also appeared in episodes of Roc, Seinfeld, Touched by an Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, NewsRadio, ER, Party of Five, Judging Amy, Charmed, Law & Order, Bones, Rizzoli & Isles, Murder in the First, 9 -1 -1, Grey’s Anatomy and Snowfall.

Her film resume included performances in Sneakers (1992), Bio-Dome (1996), Starship Troopers (1997), Pleasantville (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Dr.  Dolittle 2 (2001).

For 18 years, Dowse taught acting and directed plays at the Amazing Grace Conservatory, a weekend performing arts school for students ages 8-18 in downtown Los Angeles.

In 2016, he directed the musical Recorded in Hollywood at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, then directed Daughters of the Mock for The Negro Ensemble Company in New York a year later.  She won several NAACP Image Awards for directing during her career.

“Out of all that, I like theater,” he said.  “It doesn’t pay the bills, but it feeds the soul.”