Frances Bay
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Frances Bay (born January 1, 1918 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) is a character actress known for playing a variety of quirky elderly women.
Bay did not appear in films until the age of 60 when she played a small part in 1978's Foul Play, a comedy vehicle for Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. She went on to play small roles in films like The Karate Kid, Big Top Pee-wee and Twins.
In 1983 she did Faerie Tale Theatre for the "Showtime" and played the grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood. In 1986, Bay appeared in 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 madam in Wild at Heart and as the eerie Mrs. Tremond on Twin Peaks and its movie spin-off, Fire Walk With Me.
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. Additionally, Bay has the honor of appearing in the final episodes of three different long-lived sitcoms: Happy Days, Who's the Boss? and Seinfeld.
On Seinfeld, she played Mabel Choate, a wealthy, irritable old woman from whom Jerry stole a loaf of marbled rye bread in the episode "The Rye", in which Bay appeared with her former Twin Peaks co-stars Grace Zabriskie and Warren Frost. In a future episode, the consequences of Jerry's act cause his parents to be evicted from Del Boca Vista, their retirement community in Florida.
Soon after the death of her husband, Charles Bay, 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. It is not known if she has any children.
