Celebrity Biographies
Elsa Raven
For her there was no brief role, as she played characters in “Back to the Future” and “Titanic”, who barely appeared on the screen but remain in the memory. The prolific supporting actress Elsa Raven died on November 3, 2020, at the age of 91, at her Los Angeles residence, according to David Shaul, her agent.
Born on September 21, 1929, in Charleston, South Carolina, Elsa Rabinowitz –her real name– began her journey in the cinema with a small role in The Honeymoon Killers , where she played a matron, the same character that they would entrust to him for The postman always rings twice . She was also the real estate agent who sells the haunted house to James Brolin and Margot Kidder on The Amityville Horror . She had fixed characters in Amen –mother of one of the protagonists– and Wiseguy –the servant– , two successful television series in the United States, but little known outside of it.
Movie fans will remember Elsa Raven most notably as the woman seeking donations to repair the lightning-destroyed clock tower in Back to the Future , and as John Malkovich ‘s landlady in In the Line of Fire . She also had an outstanding and emotional sequence in Titanic , where she gave life to Ida Straus, an old woman who hugged her husband in bed waiting for the tragic end of the ocean liner. She shot more scenes featuring her character, but they were all cut in the editing room. These characters appeared in Céline Dion’s video, where she sang “My Heart Will Go On”.
Elsa Raven retired from acting in 2009, after Answers to Nothing , an intrigue film that went unnoticed. During the last days of her life, she prided herself on seeing most of the movies that were in order to vote for the Academy Awards, of which she was a part of. She had no children, but she is survived by fifteen nephews, to whom she was very close.