who played the mother in throw momma from the train
Throw Momma from the Train Novelist Larry Donner (Billy Crystal) struggles with writer's block due to his resentment towards his ex-wife Margaret (Kate Mulgrew), who stole his book and garnered mainstream success and critical acclaim with it. Owen Lift (Danny DeVito) is a timid, middle-aged fellow who still lives with his overbearing, abusive and paranoid mother (Anne Ramsey). Owen fantasizes about killing his mother but can't summon the courage to bring his desires into fruition. As a student in Larry's community college writing class, Owen is given advice by Larry to view an Alfred Hitchcock film to gain some insight into plot development for his mystery stories. He sees Strangers on a Train, in which two strangers conspire to commit a murder for each other, figuring their lack of connection to the victim will, in theory, establish a perfect alibi. Having overheard Larry's public rant that he wished his ex-wife dead, Owen forms a plan to kill Margaret, believing that Larry will, in return, kill his mother.
Brenda Fricker Buoyed by her Oscar win, Fricker went on to appear in several high-profile Hollywood films, most notably in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York as the Central Park Pigeon Lady (arguably her most popular film role). The following year she portrayed May Mackenzie (the Weekly World News-obsessed Scottish mother of Mike Myers' Charlie Mackenzie) in So I Married an Axe Murderer, and next portrayed Joseph Gordon Levitt's character's motherly caretaker Maggie in Angels in the Outfield. One of her last Hollywood film roles came with A Time to Kill, as Ethel Twitty (loyal secretary to Matthew McConaughey's Jake Brigance), after which she focused almost exclusively on film and television work in Canada and the British Isles. In 2003, she played Bernie Guerin, mother of Veronica Guerin (played by Cate Blanchett) in the film of the same name. She then played nurse Eileen in the film Inside I'm Dancing. In 2007, she starred in How About You the film based on a short story about people living in a residential nursing home written by Maeve Binchy, playing Heather Nightangle. Other important roles were Omagh in 2004 as police Ombudsman Nuala O' Loan, as Graiine McFadden in the TV docudrama No Tears about the women treated with the blood product Anti D in the seventies who had been contaminated with Hepatitis C, and as Aunt Maeve in Durango in 1999, based on the novel by John B Keane.