FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The actress who played the Jamaican psychic Miss Cleo, claiming to know callers’ futures in ubiquitous TV infomercials and commercials, has died of cancer. Youree Dell Harris, 53, died Tuesday in Palm Beach, her lawyer, William J. Cone Jr., said.

The Los Angeles-born Harris was a struggling actress when the Psychic Readers Network hired her in the late 1990s to play Miss Cleo. She adopted her family’s Jamaican heritage for the role, persuading viewers to call for allegedly free psychic readings.

The federal government said those “free” calls cost consumers about $1 billion. The Federal Trade Commission said the psychic service promised a free reading, but callers were charged $4.99 per minute. The Psychic Readers Network’s parent company forgave $500 million in customer charges in a 2002 settlement.

After the settlement, Harris mostly faded from view for over a decade. She returned to the public eye in 2014 when she appeared in the documentary “Hotline.”