Everybody Loves Raymond actress dies aged 89
Emmy-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress Katherine Helmond has died aged 89, according to her talent agency.
Helmond died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease last Saturday at her home in Los Angeles, talent agency APA said in a statement.
A native of Galveston, Texas, Helmond’s credits date back to the 1950s and she worked steadily in small roles through the decades.
But her real fame, and all seven of her Emmy nominations, didn’t start arriving until she was nearly 50.
She was probably best known for playing Mona Robinson, Judith Light’s mother, on Who’s the Boss?, which also starred Tony Danza and a young Alyssa Milano.
She won a best supporting Golden Globe for her work in 1989.
“My beautiful, kind, funny, gracious, compassionate, rock,” Milano mourned on Twitter.
“You were an instrumental part of my life. You taught me to hold my head above the marsh! You taught me to do anything for a laugh! What an example you were!”
Who’s the Boss co-star Light said Helmond was a remarkable human being and extraordinary artist.
“She taught me so much about life and inspired me indelibly by watching her work. Katherine was a gift to our business and to the world,” she said in a statement.
Her major break came with Soap, a parody of soap operas that aired from 1977 to 1981.
She played wealthy matriarch Jessica Tate, one of two main characters on the show, which co-starred Robert Guillaume and was also a breakthrough for Billy Crystal, who played her nephew.
She was nominated for Emmys for all four seasons of the show and won a best actress in a comedy Golden Globe in 1981.
Helmond kept working into her 80s doing mostly voice work, most notably as the Model T Lizzie in the Pixar Cars films.
She had a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond from 1996 to 2004 as the title character’s mother-in-law.
“Katherine Helmond was such a class act and incredibly down to earth,” tweeted actress Patricia Heaton, who co-starred with Ray Romano on the show.
“She was terrific as my mother on Everybody Loves Raymond and I looked up to her as a role model.”
She is survived by her husband of 57 years, David Christian, her half-sister Alice Parry, and many nieces and nephews, her agency’s statement said.
A memorial is being planned.
