Ruth Landers, creator of ‘The Huggabug Club’ kids TV show with daughters, dead at 85

SARASOTA, Fla. — Ruth Landers, a producer who created and helped produce the 1990s children’s television program “The Huggabug Club” on PBS with her daughters, died April 18. She was 85.

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Landers died in Sarasota, Florida, according to her obituary that appeared May 2 in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. She died of natural causes.

Landers created “The Huggabug Club” with her daughters, actresses Audrey Landers and Judy Landers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series, aimed at children between the ages of 2 and 8, featured Audrey Landers as Miss Audrey and Judy Landers as Miss Judy.

The two actresses worked opposite full-bodied puppets on the show, which originally aired on PBS from January 1995 to June 1997, according to IMDb.com.

Audrey Landers, 67, portrayed Afton Cooper on “Dallas” in 84 episodes across seven seasons and played dancer Val Clarke in the 1985 film, “A Chorus Line,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Judy Landers, 65, appeared on television on “Vega$,” “B.J. and the Bear” and “Madam’s Place,” the entertainment news website reported.

Ruth Landers, called an original Hollywood “Momager” in her obituary, produced several projects involving her daughters. They include “Ghost Writer” (1989), which featured both daughters; “Club Fed” (1990), which starred Judy; and “California Casanova,” which starred Audrey, according to The Hollywood Reporter. She was also an executive producer of “Circus Camp” (2006), which featured her daughters and other family members.

Ruth Béate Landers was born on May 17, 1938, in Frankfurt, Germany. Shortly after the Kristallnacht incidents in November 1938, she and her mother, grandmother and grandfather -- the surviving members of her family -- fled the Nazis for Shanghai, according to her obituary.

She came to the United States in 1948 and launched a national printing company, Office Research Corp., when she was in her mid-20s.

Ruth took pride in personifying the absolute American dream from a refugee to a trailblazing and glamorous icon. leaving a legacy of passion, generosity, luminosity, and love,” her obituary stated. “The magnitude of Ruth’s adventurous and generous soul and joie de vivre is legendary.

“She was known to many as the ultimate ‘force of nature.’”

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