Constance "Connie" Ruscetti Izay (November 29, 1928 – August 21, 1982) was an American nurse, actress, and

technical advisor In film production, a technical advisor is someone who advises the director on the convincing portrayal of a subject. The advisor's expertise adds realism both to the acting and to the setting of a movie. Nipo T. Strongheart Nipo T. Stronghear ...

on television programs, including ''

M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (an acronym for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richa ...

'' and '' Marcus Welby, M.D.''

Early life and education

Constance Blanche Ruscetti was born in

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania Aliquippa is a city in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 9,238 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is located northwest of Pittsburgh and is part of the Pittsburgh metropolitan ar ...

, the daughter of Joseph Ruscetti and Rose Palazzi Ruscetti. She graduated from Hopewell High School in Aliquippa in 1947, and trained as a nurse at Sewickley Valley Hospital. In her twenties, she moved to

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

with her parents.

Career

Izay was a

registered nurse A registered nurse (RN) is a healthcare professional who has graduated or successfully passed a nursing program from a recognized nursing school and met the requirements outlined by a country, state, province or similar government-authorized ...

. She worked as a nurse educator in the

Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands () are an archipelago between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Caribbean Sea, geographically forming part of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, Caribbean islands or West Indie ...

for two years, and was employed at the

Lovelace Clinic Lovelace Health System is a healthcare company which operates six hospitals in New Mexico, five in Albuquerque and one in Roswell. It is one of New Mexico's largest employers with 3,659 employees as of 2020. The company grew out of the Lovelace ...

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

, where she helped with medical testing for the first American astronauts. Izay was also active in community theater in Albuquerque. She married a theatre director, and moved to Los Angeles with him. She sometimes worked as a studio nurse, and sometimes played nurses in medical television programs. She was "Nurse Connie" in three episodes of ''M*A*S*H'', and played a nurse in ''

Man from Atlantis ''Man from Atlantis'' is an American Superhero fiction, superhero television series that ran on the NBC network from 1977–78. It began as four TV movies that aired in Spring 1977. The movies achieved high ratings which led to the commissioning ...

'' and ''Marcus Welby, M.D.'' "Though she's never seen a shrapnel wound in her life, Izay is now regularly called upon to bandage simulated war wounds on the Korean front," noted a 1980 profile. She was also a medical technical advisor on several television shows, especially ''Marcus Welby'' and ''M*A*S*H'', but also an episode of ''

Bonanza ''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on ...

'' that involved a kitchen-table surgery to remove a bullet. She was "on the set at all times", read scripts for medical errors, highlighted terminology actors might need help to pronounce correctly, and showed actors how to hold medical equipment. Beyond the technical aspects of her work, she tried to improve how nurses were portrayed on television. "I recall many a day when she'd come home elated because she and Loretta (Swit) had instigated change in the image that the nurses would present in the series," recalled her husband in 1983.

Personal life and legacy

Ruscetti married actor Victor Izay in 1955. They had three children, Gregory, Victoria, and Stephen. She died from breast cancer in 1982, in Los Angeles, at the age of 53. The 1983 ''M*A*S*H'' episode "As Time Goes By", the last episode filmed for the series, and the second-to-last episode aired, was dedicated to her memory.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Izay, Connie 1928 births 1982 deaths American nurses People from Aliquippa, Pennsylvania American television actresses Deaths from breast cancer in California