Jean Lodge, the British actor who play Queen Guinevere in the 1954 King Arthur movie The Black Knight and who was the mother of Days of Our Lives and The Nanny star Charles Shaughnessy and soap opera director David Shaughnessy, died Wednesday, August 5. She was 99.

Her death was announced on Facebook by her granddaughter Amy Shaughnessy.

“Jean Margaret Shaughnessy (neé Lodge) left us today, one day after her 99th birthday,” Amy Shaughnessy wrote. “She passed, as she would say, ‘quite quietly’ and peacefully in her sleep.”

Lodge was married to Alfred Shaughnessy, the chief writer of the British 1970s hit series Upstairs, Downstairs, from 1948 until his death in 2005. Son David Shaughnessy has directed for Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, among other soaps, and is a voice actor with credits including Big Hero 6 and Star Wars Rebels.

Charles Shaughnessy is best known for his long-running roles of Shane Donovan on Days of Our Lives and Victor Cassadine on General Hospital, as well as for costarring with Fran Drescher on the 1993-1999 sitcom The Nanny.

From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Jean Lodge’s prolific career in British film and TV included, in addition to The Black Knight, the movies White Corridors, Brandy for the Parson, and, in 1961, The Hellfire Club opposite Peter Cushing. Lodge also appeared on stage in the West End in the 1950s.

Born Jean Margaret Lodge on August 4, 1927, in Hull, England, Lodge was, her granddaughter writes, “a beautiful, talented, complicated, passionate, emotional, energetic woman who was always on the move and full of life. The perfect hostess Jean enjoyed parties, friends, socializing, the theatre, feeding the ducks, museums, gardening, music, culture, long walks in nature, animals, painting (she was amazing!), cooking, art, traveling… the list goes on.”

The statement continues, “She loved her two sons, Charles and David, her daughters-in-law, Susie and Annie, and her five granddaughters, Amy, Jenny, Katie, Maddy, and Josie. She was blessed with two great-grandsons, Julian and Noa.

“An ever-present matriarch, her silliness, stubbornness, joyfulness, and her love for storytelling will continue on through her family. Us. Forever. We will miss her. We will carry her with us always. We love her all the world and then some.”

Netflix is extending its relationship with MLB with a new untitled scripted series about the New York Yankees which they’re putting into development with Emmy winner Jason Bateman‘s Aggregate Films and Daytime Emmy winner Josh Wakely.

We understand it was Wakely who secured the rights from MLB and developed the series concept. He’s already in business with the streamer on the Emmy-winning animated series Beat Bugs, which follows insects in a residential backyard set to the music of the Beatles. He also produced the animated series follow-up, Motown Magic, which is set to the music made famous by the Motor City.

Bateman and Michael Costigan’s Aggregate Films have a longstanding creative partnership with Netflix. This season alone of Aggregate’s 20 Emmy nominations, seven are from the Netflix limited series Black Rabbit, while 13 are from HBO’s limited series, DTF St. Louis.

Wakely will be an EP for Grace: A Storytelling Company, Bateman, and Costigan for Aggregate, Nick Trotta for MLB Studios; as well as Peter Sobiloff, Mike Sobiloff, Sean Mullin; Josh Glick, Daniel Cohan and Jon Liebman for Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

Netflix is streaming several MLB live-events between 2026 and 2028. Their collaboration kicked off earlier this year with the MLB Opening Night Game on March 25, followed by the T-Mobile Home Run Derby on July 13 — which remained the most-watched All-Star skills competition in sports. Netflix’s next MLB event, MLB at Field of Dreams, streams live exclusively on August 13. Earlier this year, Netflix also streamed all 47 games of the 2026 World Baseball Classic for members in Japan.

Bateman and Costigan’s Aggregate Films’ also made the award-winning series Ozark with Netflix as well as the feature Cackling of the Dodos, now in production with Bateman directing, and Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson star. Aggregate and Netflix were also behind Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, which was acquired by the streamer out of TIFF 2023, and Aline Brosh McKenna’s romantic comedy, Your Place or Mine. Bateman alone counts four Emmy noms this season for Outstanding Limited/Anthology series for DTF St. Louis, Supporting Actor Limited/Anthology series for that HBO show, as well as Outstanding Actor in the category for Black Rabbit and directing for that series in which he co-starred with Jude Law.

Wakely recently wrote and directed the sci-fi thriller Starman starring Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, Jeff Daniels and Aisling Bea.