Anne Ramsey was an American stage, television, and film actress.
Background
Anne Ramsey was born Anne Mobley in Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Eleanor (née Smith), the former national treasurer of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, and Nathan Mobley, an insurance executive. Her mother was a descendant of the Pilgrims (William Brewster), and a sister of United States. Ambassador David S. Smith.
Education
She attended Bennington College where she became interested in theatre.
Career
She is probably most famous for her roles as Mama Fratelli in The Goonies and as Mistress Lift, Danny DeVito"s character"s mother, in Throw Momma from the Train. The latter performance garnered her a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Ramsey was raised in Great Neck, New York and Greenwich, Connecticut.
They moved to Philadelphia where they formed the Theatre of the Living Arts. In the 1970s, Anne Ramsey began a successful Hollywood career in character roles and appeared in such television programs as Little House on the Prairie, Wonder Woman, Three"s Company and Ironside.
In February 1988, she guest-starred on an episode of ALF that aired six months before her death. She also appeared in six films released in the two years after her death.
Ramsey"s somewhat slurred speech, a trademark of her later performances, was caused in part from having had some of her tongue and her jaw removed during surgery for esophageal cancer in 1984.
In 1988, Ramsey"s cancer returned. She died in August at the Motion Picture & Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.