Frances Bay

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Frances Bay (January 23, 1919 – September 15, 2011) was a Canadian-American character actress and comedian. Born Frances Evelyn Goffman in Mannville, Alberta, she grew up in Dauphin, Manitoba. Her younger brother was the sociologist Erving Goffman.

Bay began her career in the 1930s as a radio actress in Canada and hosted the CBC radio show Everybody’s Program for service members overseas during World War II. She studied acting with Uta Hagen.

She returned to acting in the 1970s, with a small part in Foul Play (1978) and a Christmas TV special. Her big break came when she played the grandmother to Fonzie on Happy Days. Over the years she appeared in many TV shows and films, often in eccentric, elderly roles. Her credits include The Jeffersons, The Dukes of Hazzard, Alice, Family Ties, Cheers, Hill Street Blues, The Golden Girls, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote, ER, and The Middle (recurring as Aunt Ginny). She won a Gemini Award in 1997 for Road to Avonlea and was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2008 after a large fan petition and endorsements from celebrities.

Bay’s film work included The Karate Kid (1984) as Mrs. Milo, Wild at Heart, The Grifters, The Pit and the Pendulum, In the Mouth of Madness, and Happy Gilmore (1996) as Anna Gilmore. She also played Mrs. Tremond in Twin Peaks and its prequel Fire Walk with Me, and appeared in Seinfeld as Mabel Choate in “The Rye.”

Personal life: She married Charles Irwin Bay in 1946. They had a son who died at 23. In 2002, Bay lost her leg in a car accident in Glendale, California. She died in Tarzana, California, from pneumonia at age 92 and is buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery.