After McDonald featured in a regular role in the short lived situation comedy "The Tea Ladies" One of McDonald's final TV appearances was at the Logie Awards on 17 March 1989, when she took part in a production number called "Golden Girls", which celebrated female Gold Logie winners of years past.

She performed the song with Lorrae Desmond, Hazel Phillips, Denise Drysdale, Jeanne Little, and Rowena Wallace.

[4] Later in 1989 McDonald appeared in an episode of the hit British TV series In Sickness and in Health in which she played Raeline's mother.

The two actors openly appeared in magazine articles about the suburban Sydney home (eastern end of Fox Valley Road, Wahroonga) they shared, and they freely discussed their international summer holidays together in press articles, although the true nature of the relationship was not explicitly stated.

[7] McDonald died after a lengthy illness of cancer of the pancreas at Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney,[8] on 10 March 1990, aged 68.