Actress Estelle Harris, who hollered her way into TV history as George Costanza's short-fused mother on 'Seinfeld' and voiced Mrs Potato Head in the 'Toy Story' franchise, has died. She was 93.
Estelle Harris' agent Michael Eisenstadt confirmed the actor's death in Palm Desert, California, on Saturday evening.
Actress Estelle Harris, who hollered her way into TV history as George Costanza's short-fused mother on 'Seinfeld' and voiced Mrs Potato Head in the 'Toy Story' franchise, has died. She was 93.
As middle-class matron Estelle Costanza, Harris put a memorable stamp on her recurring role in the smash 1990s sitcom. With her high-pitched voice and humorously overbearing attitude, she was an archetype of maternal indignation.
Trading insults and absurdities with her on-screen husband, played by Jerry Stiller, Harris helped create a parental pair that would leave even a psychiatrist helpless to do anything but hope they'd move to Florida 바카라 as their son, played by Jason Alexander, fruitlessly encouraged them to do.
Harris' agent Michael Eisenstadt confirmed the actor's death in Palm Desert, California, on Saturday evening.
Viewers of all backgrounds would tell her she was just like their own mothers, Harris often said.
바카라She is the mother that everybody loves, even though she's a pain in the neck,바카라 she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998.
The career-defining role came after decades on stage and screen. Born April 22, 1928, in New York City, Harris grew up in the city and later in the Pittsburgh suburb of Tarentum, Pennsylvania, where her father owned a candy store. She started tapping her comedic talents in high school productions where she realized she 바카라could make the audience get hysterical,바카라 as she told People magazine in 1995.
After the nine-season run of 'Seinfeld' ended in 1998, Harris continued to appear on stage and screen. She voiced Mrs Potato Head in the 1999 animated blockbuster 'Toy Story 2' and played the recurring character Muriel in the popular Disney Channel sitcom 'The Suite Life of Zack & Cody',바카라 among other roles.
She had stopped pursuing show business when she married in the early 1950s but resumed acting in amateur groups, dinner theater and commercials as her three children grew (바카라I had to get out of diapers and bottles and blah-blah baby talk,바카라 she told People).
Eventually, she began appearing in guest roles on TV shows including the legal comedy 'Night Court,' and in films including director Sergio Leone's 1984 gangland epic 'Once Upon a Time in America.'
Her 'Seinfeld' debut came in one of the show's most celebrated episodes: the Emmy Award-winning 1992 'The Contest,' in which the four central characters challenge each other to refrain from doing what is artfully described only as 'that.'
Harris would go on to appear in dozens more episodes of the 바카라show about nothing.바카라 She seethed over snubbed paella, screeched about George's hanky-panky in the parental bed and laid out the spread for screen husband Frank's idiosyncratic holiday, Festivus.
바카라Estelle is a born performer,바카라 Stiller told The Record of Bergen County, N.J., in 1998. 바카라I just go with what I got, and she goes back at me the same way.바카라
Still, Harris saw a sympathetic undertone to her character, often saying Estelle fumed out frustration at her bumbling mate and scheming slacker of a son.
Viewers, she told an interviewer in 1998, 바카라just look at her as being funny, cute and a loudmouth. But it's not how I play her. I play her with misery underneath.바카라
She is survived by her three children, three grandsons, and a great grandson.
[With Inputs From PTI]