Anna Berger

Character Actress Dead at 91 -- You've Seen Her in 'The Sopranos,' 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and Countless Other TV Shows and Movies

A character actress who was a familiar face on television shows including "NYPD Blue," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," “Everybody Loves Raymond” and “The Sopranos” has died. The New York Times reports that Anna Berger died May 26 in Manhattan. She was 91.

"Ms. Berger began playing a diverse array of older women while she was still young; as early as her student days at the Dramatic Workshop at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, she was cast as Juno Boyle, an Irish working-class mother, in a production of Sean O’Casey’s 'Juno and the Paycock,'" the story reports.

In a 2008 interview, she said playing the mother “wasn’t difficult.” “I just thought of the women I knew, and I would portray the heartache they were going through,” she said.

Along with her long list of TV credits Berger worked regularly in feature films, appearing in Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" and in “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” in which she played a mother who has been taken hostage. The film starred Walter Matthau, who was a childhood neighbor and friend of the actress, the piece notes.

R.I.P.