Estelle Harris, ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Toy Story’ actor, dies at 93

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Estelle Harris, who hollered her way into TV history as George Costanza’s short-fused mother on “Seinfeld” and voiced Mrs. “She is the mother that everybody loves, even though she’s a pain in the neck,” she told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1998. 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,” among other roles. 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 “show about nothing.” 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.