Frances Bay: Difference between revisions
Doc Strange (talk | contribs) that reference is for her birth, not her death |
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===Notable film roles=== |
===Notable film roles=== |
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Bay may also be familiar from her performance in the music video for [[Jimmy Fallon]]'s comedy song, ''Idiot Boyfriend''. Bay is perhaps best known today, however, for her performance as the hapless |
Bay may also be familiar from her performance in the music video for [[Jimmy Fallon]]'s comedy song, ''Idiot Boyfriend''. Bay is perhaps best known today, however, for her performance as the hapless but loving grandmother of [[Adam Sandler]]'s character in the 1996 film ''[[Happy Gilmore]]''. |
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==Television== |
==Television== |
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Revision as of 20:53, 16 September 2011
Frances Bay (January 23, 1919[1]-September 15, 2011)[2] was a U.S.-based Canadian character actress, best known for playing quirky, elderly women on film and television.
Personal life
Bay was born Frances Goffman in Mannville, Alberta and raised in Dauphin, Manitoba. Her younger brother was the sociologist Erving Goffman. Before World War II she acted professionally in Winnipeg and spent the war hosting the Canadian Broadcasting Company's radio show, "Everybody's Program", aimed at service members overseas.
She married and moved to New York City (where she studied with Uta Hagen), Boston and Los Angeles.[3] Charles and Frances Bay had one son, Josh, who died at the age of 23. Soon after the death of her husband in 2002, she was struck by a car in Glendale, California, and as a result she had to have part of her right leg amputated.[4]
She was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame on September 6, 2008, in large part thanks to a petition with 10,000 names which was submitted on her behalf. The selection committee also received personal letters from Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld, David Lynch, Henry Winkler, Monty Hall and other celebrities.[5][6]
Early roles
Bay did not appear in films until she was almost 60 years old, when she had a small part in Foul Play, a 1978 comedy starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. A year earlier, Bay appeared as Mrs. Hamilton in the Christmas television special Christmastime with Mister Rogers. She went on to play small roles in films like The Karate Kid, Big Top Pee-wee and Twins.
Her first major television appearance occurred playing the grandmother to the character of "Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli" on Happy Days. Star Henry Winkler is "just a sweet guy. He lost his own grandmother in the Holocaust, and he wrote me a letter saying I was his virtual grandmother".[7] In 1983, she played the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood in Faerie Tale Theatre for Showtime. In 1994, she played Mrs.Pickman in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness.
Work with David Lynch
In 1986, Bay appeared as the doddery aunt of Kyle MacLachlan's character in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. This role seems to have endeared the actress to Lynch, who recast her in several subsequent works, including as a foul-mouthed madam in Wild at Heart, and as the eerie "Mrs. Tremond" on Twin Peaks and its movie spin-off, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Notable film roles
Bay may also be familiar from her performance in the music video for Jimmy Fallon's comedy song, Idiot Boyfriend. Bay is perhaps best known today, however, for her performance as the hapless but loving grandmother of Adam Sandler's character in the 1996 film Happy Gilmore.
Television
She has the distinction of appearing in the final episodes of three long-running sitcom series: Happy Days, Who's the Boss? and Seinfeld. Bay had the opportunity to play Cousin Winifred in the fourth to last episode of Road To Avonlea, for which she won a Gemini Award. She made an appearance as Mrs. Pickman in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. [citation needed]
Notable television appearances
- In an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard episode, "The Return of Hughie Hogg", Bay played Hortense Coltrane, Boss Hogg's sister-in-law; the previously unmentioned sister of Lulu Coltrane Hogg and Rosco P. Coltrane.
- In episode 19 ("The Gift") of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Bay played a dying woman, Mildred Grayson, who has been abandoned by her daughters.
- In an earlier episode of Seinfeld, she played Mabel Choate, a wealthy, irritable old woman from whom Jerry steals a loaf of marbled rye bread. In that episode, entitled "The Rye", Bay appeared with her former Twin Peaks co-stars Grace Zabriskie and Warren Frost. In a future episode, the consequences of Jerry's act set in motion a string of events which cause Seinfeld's father, Morty, to be impeached as president of his retirement community in Florida. Her appearance in the final two episodes of Seinfeld also stem from this madcap scenario. [citation needed]
- She appeared in an episode of Charmed as an older version of the character Phoebe Halliwell, and in an episode of Grey's Anatomy as an elderly patient that "just wouldn't die" in 2009.
- She has a recurring role as "Aunt Ginny" on The Middle, albeit her character does not speak.
References
- ^ Some sources cite January 1, 1918 as her birthday, but Intelius indicates January 23, 1919, giving her age as 92 as of July 18, 2011.
- ^ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/character-actress-frances-bay-dies-at-92.html
- ^ Michael Posner, "Seinfeld's marble rye lady honoured". Toronto Globe and Mail, September 6, 2008, pg. R4
- ^ Report of Bay's serious car injury
- ^ "Steve Nash, kd lang among new Walk of Fame inductees". CTV News. 2008-06-03. Retrieved 2008-06-03.
- ^ Michael Posner, "Seinfeld's marble rye lady honoured". Toronto Globe and Mail, September 6, 2008, pg. R4
- ^ Bay quoted by Michael Posner, "Seinfeld's marble rye lady honoured". Toronto Globe and Mail, September 6, 2008, pg. R4