Ronnie Claire Edwards, Corabeth in The Waltons, dies aged 83

Ronnie Claire Edwards joined The Waltons four years after the series started

Ronnie Claire Edwards, best known for playing Corabeth Walton Godsey in The Waltons, has died aged 83.

The US actress appeared as the bossy wife of shopkeeper Ike Godsey in more than 100 episodes of the long-running TV show between 1975 and 1981.

She also appeared in five Waltons TV movies between 1982 and 1997, as well as episodes of Murder She Wrote, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Dallas.

A post on her Facebook page said she "passed peacefully in her sleep".

"Our beautiful and extraordinary friend has peacefully made her final curtain call," another post read. "Thank you all for your wonderful caring and support."

Born in Oklahoma City in 1933, Edwards started her professional acting career in the 1963 Jean Simmons film All the Way Home.

She joined The Waltons - which followed the lives of a Virginia mountain family through the 1930s and '40s - four years into its award-winning run.

Her last TV role was in 2007, when she appeared in two episodes of the Lily Tomlin series 12 Miles of Bad Road.

Edwards also wrote books, among them an autobiography entitled The Knife Thrower's Assistant: Memoirs of a Human Target, as well as a play about Elvis Presley fans called Idols of the King.

Last year she self-published a humorous book entitled This is the Smartest Dog in the World.