Los Angeles ( CNN ) -- Actress Eleanor Parker , nominated for three Oscars and known for her `` Sound of Music '' role , died Monday at 91 , her family said . Parker died at a medical facility near her Palm Springs , California , home from complications related to pneumonia , according to director Richard Gale , who is a family friend . Her acting career began on stage as a teenager , but it was a performance at the Pasadena Playhouse that led Warner Bros. to sign her to a studio contract on her 18th birthday . She became a big screen leading lady during the 1940s , making her film debut in 1941 in `` They Died with Their Boots On . '' Her early notable movies included `` Pride of the Marines '' in 1945 and `` Voice of the Turtle '' -- opposite Ronald Reagan -- in 1947 . The 1950s brought Parker to another level of stardom , including three best actress Oscar nominations . The first Academy Award nomination came in 1950 for her portrayal of a terrorized prison inmate in `` Caged . '' Parker was nominated again in 1951 for playing Kirk Douglas ' wife in `` Detective Story . '' A third Oscar bid followed in 1955 for her role as the polio-stricken opera star Marjorie Lawrence in `` Interrupted Melody . '' Despite a long list of other distinguished film roles -- including opposite Frank Sinatra in Otto Preminger 's `` The Man with the Golden Arm '' ( 1955 ) and Clark Gable in `` The King and Four Queens '' ( 1956 ) -- it was a smaller role that audiences today are most likely to recognize . Parker played the baroness who wanted to send the von Trapp children to a boarding school in the 1965 classic `` The Sound of Music . '' Although the stage and screen occupied the first several decades of her half-century acting career , she stayed busy working on television shows in the 1970s onward . She starred in NBC 's `` Bracken 's World '' in 1969 . Her resume included three made-for-TV movies : ABC 's `` Once Upon a Spy '' in 1980 , NBC 's `` Madame X '' in 1981 and TNT 's `` Dead on the Money '' in 1991 . Parker also acted in a 1986 episode of CBS ' `` Murder , She Wrote . '' People we lost in 2013 .
Eleanor Parker was a big screen leading lady during the 1940s . She had many hits She played the baroness who wanted to send the von Trapp children to a boarding school .