Character actress Frances Bay died on 15 September 2011 of complications from pneumonia. Born Frances Goffman in Manville, Alberta, Canada, on 23 January 1919, she won a Gemini Award (the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy) in 1997 for her role on The Road to Avonlea. She received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto in 2008.
She began her career as a radio actress, but walked away from acting when she married and had a son (who died in his 20s). She returned to acting in her fifties, and made her feature film debut in Foul Play (1978), which starred Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The New York Times notes she “hit her stride playing the role she became known for: an often doddering, mostly sweet, elderly woman.” The Times also says “Though not a household name, she was ubiquitous. She played grandmother to Adam Sandler’s title character in the film Happy Gilmore and appeared in the final episodes of Who’s the Boss?, Seinfeld, and Happy Days.”
IMDB credits her with more than 150 film and television appearances, since Foul Play, running up through her eleven episodes as “Aunt Ginny” in the tv series The Middle (2009-11). Her genre appearances include: Ring Around the Rosie (2006), Charmed (2002), Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (1998), The X-Files (1994), In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The Paper Boy (1994), The Neighbor (1993), Quantum Leap (1992), Grave Secrets: The Legacy of Hilltop Drive (1992), Critters 3 (1991), The Pit and the Pendulum (1991), Arachnophobia (1990), ALF (1990), Alien Nation (1990), Tales from the Crypt (1990), Nomads (1986), Amazing Stories (1985), Faerie Tale Theatre (1983), Double Exposure (1983), The Attic (1980), and Topper (1979).
Her husband died in 2002; she leaves no immediate survivors.