Frances Bay, Canadian character actress (Happy Gilmore, Blue Velvet, The Middle), died she was 92.

Frances Bay was a U.S.-based Canadian character actress, best known for playing quirky, elderly women on film and television  died she was 92. She began her acting career in her mid-50s.

(January 23, 1919^[2] – September 15, 2011)^[3] 

Personal life

Bay was born Frances Goffman in Mannville, Alberta to a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant father, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach), and raised in Dauphin, Manitoba. Her younger brother was the noted 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.^[4]
She married and moved to Cape Town, South Africa, living in the Constantia and Camps Bay areas. She studied with Uta Hagen at this time.^[5] Charles and Frances Bay had one son, Josh (Eli Joshua; 14 March 1947 – 6 June 1970)^[6], 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.^[7]
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.^[8][9]

Early roles

Bay did not appear in films until she got a small part in Foul Play, a 1978 comedy starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. A year earlier, she 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 Fonzarelli (aka "The Fonz") on Happy Days. She described Henry Winkler (who played Fonzarelli) as "just a sweet guy. He lost his own grandmother in the Holocaust, and he wrote me a letter saying I was his virtual grandmother".^[10] 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 Mrs. Tremond on Twin Peaks and its movie spin-off, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

Other roles

She may be best-remembered for her performance as the loving grandmother of Adam Sandler's titular character in the 1996 film Happy Gilmore. Bay is also familiar from her performance in the music video for Jimmy Fallon's comedy song "Idiot Boyfriend". She made an appearance as Mrs. Pickman in John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness.

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.

Notable television appearances

• In a 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 the Seinfeld episode "The Rye", she played Mabel Choate, an irritable old woman from whom Jerry steals a loaf of marbled rye bread. She guest-starred with her former Twin Peaks co-stars Grace Zabriskie and Warren Frost, although she did not share scenes with them. Following a story arc, she then appeared in a later episode, "The Cadillac". She recognized Jerry as the thief, and cast the deciding vote to impeach Jerry's father as president of his condo community. She also appeared in the final episode to recount the incident.
• In the episode "Excelsis Dei" of The X-Files, Bay played Dorothy, a resident of the nursing home who could see the spirits that had been awakened.
• She appeared in an episode of Charmed as an older version of the character Phoebe Halliwell.
• She appeared in an episode of Grey's Anatomy in 2009 as an elderly patient who "just wouldn't die".
• Her last part was a recurring role as the silent Aunt Ginny on The Middle. The episode "The Map" was dedicated to her.

Death

Bay died in Tarzana, California on September 15, 2011, of complications from pneumonia, aged 92.^[11]

To see more of who died in 2011 click here