'The Young and the Restless' star Jeanne Cooper dies

LOS ANGELES -- Jeanne Cooper, the enduring soap opera star who played grande dame Katherine Chancellor for nearly four decades on "The Young and the Restless," has died. She was 84.

Cooper died Wednesday morning in her sleep, her son, actor Corbin Bernsen, wrote on Facebook. The family confirmed the death to CBS, a network spokeswoman said.

She was in a Los Angeles-area hospital, said Bernsen's spokesman, Charles Sherman, who said the cause of death was not immediately available.

"One of the last great broads in our business -- Jeanne Cooper, Mom -- is now stirring up trouble in great beyond," her family said in a statement.

Cooper will be remembered "as a daytime television legend and as a friend who will truly be missed by all of us here at the network," said Nina Tassler, president of CBS Entertainment.

Cooper joined the serial six months after its March 1973 debut and earned 11 Daytime Emmy nominations and a trophy for best actress in a drama series in 2008.

"God knows it's claimed a big part of my life," she said in March as "The Young and the Restless" celebrated its 40th anniversary. As the years passed, Cooper brushed aside thoughts of saying goodbye to the show and its fictional Wisconsin town of Genoa City. "What would I do? I'm no good at crocheting. My fingers would bleed," she said last September.

Cooper was born in Taft, Calif., in 1928. Her professional career began with the 1953 film "The Redhead from Wyoming" starring Maureen O'Hara. In a recurring role on "L.A. Law," she played the mother to Bernsen's character, Arnie, and received a 1987 Emmy nomination for best guest actress in a drama. -- AP