Frances Bay (January 23, 1919 – September 15, 2011) was a U.S.-based Canadian character actress, best known for playing quirky, elderly women on film and television. She began her acting career in her mid-50s.
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 ...
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Frances Bay (January 23, 1919 – September 15, 2011) was a U.S.-based Canadian character actress, best known for playing quirky, elderly women on film and television. She began her acting career in her mid-50s.
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.
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. Charles and Frances Bay had one son, Josh (Eli Joshua; 14 March 1947 – 6 June 1970), 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...
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