Mary Beth Hurt dead: ‘The World According to Garp' actress was 79

Mary Beth Hurt, the Tony Award-nominated actress whose screen and stage career spanned five decades, has died at the age of 79 following a decade-long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Her daughter Molly Schrader confirmed the news on Instagram on Sunday, saying her mother passed away on Saturday at an assisted living facility in Jersey City, New Jersey. 

"Yesterday morning we lost my mom, Mary Beth, to Alzheimer's after a decade long battle with the disease," she wrote alongside a photograph of herself as a baby with her mother. 

"She was an actress, a wife, a sister, a mother, an aunt, a friend, and she took on all those roles with grace and a kind ferocity. Although we're grieving there is some comfort in knowing she is no longer suffering and is reunited with her sisters in peace."

Her husband, Oscar-nominated writer and director Paul Schrader, also confirmed her death to the Hollywood Reporter. 

Hurt had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2015 and had been living in a Manhattan facility until recently, when she moved to the assisted living home in Jersey City where she spent her final days.

Hurt built a distinguished career across film, television and theatre. 

On screen, she appeared in Woody Allen's Interiors in 1978, and worked with Martin Scorsese on both The Age of Innocence in 1993 and Bringing Out the Dead in 1999. 

She also collaborated with her husband Schrader on several projects, including Light Sleeper in 1992 and Affliction in 1997.

On Broadway, she earned three Tony Award nominations for her performances in Trelawny of the Wells, Crimes of the Heart and Benefactors, cementing her reputation as one of the stage's most respected performers of her generation. 

She also made television appearances on Law & Order and Kojak.

Hurt was previously married to actor William Hurt from 1971 to 1982.

She married Schrader in 1983, and the couple had two children together, Molly and son Sam.