NEW YORK — Noreen Corcoran, who grew up before television viewers in the 1950s and ’60s as a teenager during five seasons of the sitcom “Bachelor Father,’’ died Friday in Van Nuys, Calif.. She was 72.

The cause was cardiopulmonary disease, her niece Mell Corcoran said.

Ms. Corcoran was 13 when she was cast to play Kelly Gregg in “New Girl in His Life,’’ a May 1957 episode of the “General Electric Theater,’’ a CBS anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan. She played a girl whose parents were killed in an automobile accident and was sent to live with her wealthy bachelor uncle in Beverly Hills.

The following September, the story line continued with the series “Bachelor Father,’’ with John Forsythe — who would go on to star in “Dynasty’’ — playing her uncle, and his houseboy, played by Sammee Tong. The show aired for two seasons on CBS, before moving to NBC and then ABC in subsequent seasons; it was canceled in 1962.

Ms. Corcoran was born on Oct. 20, 1943, in Quincy, Mass., to Kathleen and William Henry Corcoran. Her family moved to Southern California, where her father worked in a maintenance position at MGM Studios.

Ms. Corcoran, like most of her seven siblings, went into acting. A younger brother Kevin, a child actor for Walt Disney who appeared in “Old Yeller,’’ died in October at 66.

In 1953, she appeared in “Young Bess,’’ a film about Queen Elizabeth I, in which she played the monarch as a child. After “Bachelor Father,’’ she had a starring role in the 1965 movie “The Girls on the Beach’’ and appeared in numerous television shows.

By the mid-1960s, Ms. Corcoran retired from acting and, with that, largely withdrew from public life. She worked for the Lewitzky Dance Company, the group formed by the modern dance choreographer Bella Lewitzky, in a “behind the scenes’’ role for more than a decade, relatives said.

Ms. Corcoran leaves two sister and a brother.