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Anne Ramsey

Anne Ramsey built a career around character roles that rarely felt secondary. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on March 27, 1929, she was raised in Great Neck, New York, and Greenwich, Connecticut. Her interest in theatre developed while attending Bennington College, leading to work in several Broadway productions during the 1950s. In 1954, Ramsey married actor Logan Ramsey. The couple later moved to Philadelphia, where they formed the Theatre of the Living Arts in 1959. That grounding in theatre preceded a screen career spanning film and television, with Ramsey emerging as a distinctive Hollywood character actor during the 1970s. Her television appearances included Little House on the Prairie, Wonder Woman, Three’s Company and Ironside. Ramsey made her film debut in The Sporting Club in 1971, appearing alongside her husband. They ultimately shared the screen in seven films, with Meet the Hollowheads, released in 1989, marking their last. Her most widely recognized film work came in the 1980s. She received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Goonies in 1985, then won the award again for Throw Momma from the Train. Her performance opposite Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito in that 1987 comedy also brought Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Those roles capture what made Ramsey such an effective screen presence: she could take a forceful supporting part and give it enough weight to shape the entire movie around her. Even when the character was heightened, Ramsey played the role with commitment rather than distance. Her later appearances included a guest role on ALF in February 1988 and a cameo in Scrooged shortly before her death that year. Several more films featuring Ramsey were released posthumously, extending a screen career built not on conventional leading roles, but on the impact of a singular character actor.