Actress Anne Schedeen, best known for playing matriarch Kate Tanner on the late-’80s sitcom ALF, has died. She was 77.
“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share Annie has passed peacefully,” reads a post on her official Facebook page. “She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her.”
“She was a force. And it is unimaginable to think about life without her in it,” the Facebook post continued. “But as she said, ‘I’m always with you.’ And she’s right. The memories, artwork, belly laughter, handmade jewelry, oil paintings, sculptures, costumes, and all around joie de vivre live on. Raise a margarita in her honor.”
Her agent, Metropolitan Talent Agency CEO and president Tom Markley, also confirmed the news. “Anne was a true artist and friend. One of a kind. I’ll miss her,” he said.
A cause of death was not revealed.
Schedeen was born Luanne Ruth Schedeen on Jan. 8, 1949, and grew up on a farm outside of Portland, Ore. She once told The Washington Post that she started acting at age 6 “with teapots and flowers” and later took acting lessons at the Portland Civic Theater. She did local theater in Hawaii and studied at Portland State University and Fort Wright College in Spokane, Wash., before relocating to New York and taking a stab at acting professionally.
“It was a long wait. I sold clothes, modeled clothes, was a shoe model,” she said. “I played in summer stock and did a commercial. Then I got signed by a big agent. Within a month I had a contract with Universal. I thought I’d come out here, take fencing lessons, drive a small Thunderbird and sit by the swimming pool. Instead, I was the daughter on Marcus Welby, M.D.”
She landed roles in shows including Paper Dolls, Emergency! and Simon & Simon before ALF. Schedeen played Kate Tanner on the sitcom about a wisecracking alien who lands in the garage of a family who lives in suburban California and moves in with them. The series ran from September 1986 to March 1990 on NBC and spawned several spinoffs, including an animated show.
“When ALF came along it was another pilot season,” she says. “I kept reading scripts. I almost got involved with one, then withdrew at the last minute. Then I read ALF. I said, ‘This is funny. It makes me laugh.’ I met the people involved, I met ALF, and became more convinced I wanted to do it. That little alien made me laugh.”
However, Schedeen later revealed to People Magazine that working on the show was a “technical nightmare — extremely slow, hot and tedious. If you had a scene with ALF, it took centuries. A 30-minute show took 20 to 25 hours to shoot. Some of the actors in the cast had difficult personalities. The whole thing was a big, dysfunctional family.”
She is survived by her husband of 55 years Christopher Barrett, daughter Tay Barrett, daughter-in-law Hilary Flynn, sister Sarabeth Schedeen, niece Minnie Schedeen brother Roland “Tony” Schedeen and sister in-law Julieann Schedeen. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Habitat for Humanity.

Anne Schedeen, the actress who starred as matriarch Kate Tanner on NBC’s ALF (1986-’90), has died. She was 77.
Deadline confirms the actress died after the family announced on Sunday that she “passed peacefully” with a heartfelt tribute posted on her Facebook. A cause of death was not immediately known.
“It is with the heaviest of hearts that we share Annie has passed peacefully,” the family wrote in the post. “She leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of creative energy, whip smart humor, delight in her family, adoration for little dogs, burning hatred for Trump, passion for second-hand thrifting, and love for a good story. We are bereft without her. We loved her so so much, as did all who met her.”
They continued, “She was a force. And it is unimaginable to think about life without her in it. But as she said, ‘I’m always with you.’ And she’s right. The memories, artwork, belly laughter, handmade jewelry, oil paintings, sculptures, costumes, and all around joie de vivre live on. Raise a margarita in her honor.”
The family asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to “one of Annie’s favorite causes,” Habitat for Humanity. “We all love you, Annie,” they added.
Schedeen’s longtime agent Tom Markley also confirmed the news to Deadline. “Annie meant the world to her family and this agency,” he said.
Born Jan. 8, 1949 in Portland, Oregon, Luanne Ruth Schedeen began drama classes as a child, studying and performing at Portland Civic Theatre. After performing dinner theater in Hawaii, she moved to New York City to pursue an acting career, getting her start in summer stock theater. She eventually moved to Los Angeles and signed a contract with Universal Pictures.
Schedeen made her onscreen debut in a 1974 episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, going on to appear in episodes of McCloud, The Bionic Woman, Emergency!, The Incredible Hulk, Three’s Company, Cheers, Magnum PI, Murder She Wrote and Judging Amy, as well as movies like Embryo (1976), Flight to Holocaust (1977), Exo-Man (1977), Champions: A Love Story (1979), Second Thoughts (1983), Slow Burn (1986) and Cast the First Stone (1989).
The actress was most know for her role as Kate Tanner, a mother who takes the titular alien into her home on the NBC sitcom ALF, which ran for four seasons from 1986 to 1990.
Schedeen is survived by her husband of 55 years, Christopher Barrett, daughter Tay Barrett, daughter-in-law Hilary Flynn, sister Sarabeth Schedeen, niece Minnie Land, brother Roland ‘Tony’ Schedeen, sister-in-law Julieanne Schedeen and her rescue dogs Roo and Red.

President Donald Trump’s birthday extravaganza was soundtracked by one of the music industry’s most disgraced figures.
Thousands of spectators on Sunday flocked to the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where giant screens have been set up to broadcast the UFC fights Trump is hosting for his 80th birthday in an arena built on the White House South Lawn.
As the spectators waited for the games, which were delayed an hour due to stormy weather, music from Sean “Diddy” Combs blasted from the speakers—an eyebrow-raising choice given the rapper’s dramatic fall from grace.
In a video posted by journalist Goad Gatsby, “Feel So Good” by rapper Mase could be heard booming across the venue. The 1997 track, Mase’s debut single, features backing vocals from Combs, who also produced it and appears in its music video. The hit was released by Combs’s record label Bad Boy Records.
“Do Ma$e got the ladies? Do Puff drive Mercedes?” Combs sings on the song’s bridge.
“Let me say this, playing Puff Daddy/Diddy at this UFC event at the White House is quite a decision,” Gatsby wrote.
The 56-year-old music mogul, whom Trump once called a “good friend,” is currently incarcerated at a low-security federal prison in New Jersey, where he is serving a 50-month sentence after being convicted of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution last July.
The use of the Combs-produced track at Trump’s birthday bash is all the more notable given that Combs’ lawyers have previously gotten in touch with the White House about a potential pardon.
Combs was accused of manipulating women and leveraging his business empires to run drug-induced, humiliating sex performances known as “freak-offs” that lasted up to four days.
The rapper, who is 21 months into his 50-month sentence, was acquitted by the jury of his sex trafficking and racketeering charges, which could have resulted in a life-in-prison sentence.
In August last year, Combs’ lawyers said his team had held “conversations in reference to a pardon” with the White House, and it later emerged that Combs had written a letter to Trump seeking a pardon.
The president, who has granted a number of controversial pardons, told The New York Times in January that Combs had “asked me for a pardon,” but that he was not considering granting the request.
Trump told Newsmax in an interview last year that he had been “very friendly” with Combs. “I got along with him great, and seemed like a nice guy,” he said.

After 10 years, Dead by Daylight is getting the horror film treatment with director Thordur Palsson helming the adaptation of the video game for Blumhouse Atomic Monster and Behaviour Interactive.
The Icelandic director (Netflix’s The Valhalla Murders, The Damned) was announced as the movie’s director on Sunday during the Dead by Daylight 10th anniversary celebration in Montreal, a sold-out, one-day event for fans of the hit horror multiplayer game.
The Dead by Daylight video game, which has featured crossovers with several horror franchises, allows one player to take on the persona of a Killer and the other four to play as Survivors. The Killer has to hunt down the Survivors and sacrifice them to a force known as the Entity, while the Survivors have to avoid being caught and power up the exit gates by fixing a series of generators.
“There is no better moment than the 10th anniversary to share this news,” said Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse Atomic Monster. “Thordur is the filmmaker we trust to carry Dead by Daylight from the screen you play on to the big screen you watch in theaters.”
Blum’s co-founder and CEO James Wan said, “One million people step into Dead by Daylight daily, and this adaptation brings them the world they love most, from Greenville to The MacMillan Estate. Thordur understands that the terror only lands if you care about who’s running, and The Damned proved he can make you feel the walls closing in. That is exactly the instinct this film needs on screen.”
Stephen Mulrooney, chief product officer for Behaviour Interactive and producer of the Dead by Daylight movie, praised Palsson’s “distinct vision, atmospheric storytelling and ability to build tension,” which he said makes him “the perfect creative voice to bring our universe to life in a way that will resonate with both longtime fans and new audiences alike.”
Wan, Blum and Mulrooney are producers on the film. Behaviour Interactive’s Remi Racine;,Atomic Monster’s Michael Clear and Judson Scott, Blumhouse’s Ryan Turek, and Striker Entertainment’s Russell Binder are executive producers.
A graduate of the UK’s National Film and Television School with an MA in Directing Fiction, Palsson created Iceland’s first Netflix Original series The Valhalla Murders in 2020. Last year, his debut feature film The Damned premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and was released in the US.
Palsson is repped by Sayle Screen, CAA, Sycamore Media and Jackoway Tyerman.

“The Office” star Rainn Wilson recently told Fox News Digital that the beloved NBC sitcom could’ve never been made in today’s cultural climate.
“I do feel like you couldn’t make ‘The Office’ today,” said Wilson. “I think that would be too hard to be as politically incorrect as the show was. And I do kind of miss that.”
He added that there was a lot of “really inappropriate” humor in “The Office,” especially from his character, Dwight Schrute, and Steve Carell’s lead, Michael Scott. Wilson thought, even though Michael and Dwight were portrayed as having no “self-awareness,” their antics wouldn’t fly in 2026.
“We milked that for a lot of great, really inappropriate stuff,” Wilson recalled. “But even with the fact that painting that character as just an idiot, I don’t think you could get away with it today.”
Wilson starred as Schrute across all nine seasons of “The Office,” which aired on NBC for 201 episodes from 2005 to 2013
Despite Wilson’s comments, “The Office” recently received “The Paper,” a sequel series that premiered on Peacock in September 2025. Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young, Tim Key and Oscar Nuñez, “The Paper” follows the day-to-day of a struggling Midwestern newspaper. The second season is set to launch later this year.
This isn’t the first time Wilson opened up about how “The Office” pushed boundaries with its humor. He told “The Last Laugh” podcast back in September 2025 that “The Office” could be “jaw-droppingly” offensive, and that if it were released today, it would be a “very, very different” show.
“Listen you know, the Benihana Christmas episode where Michael and Andy draw with a sharpie on one of the Asian women that they’ve brought back to the Christmas party is jaw droppingly kind of horrific,” Wilson said. “And it’s a tricky conversation, you know? They’re clueless and in their cluelessness they’re racist and insensitive, and they’re always saying the wrong thing. And that’s Michael, Dwight and Andy — and Kevin for that matter. So it’s a show based around clueless, insensitive, racist, sexist people that kind of mirrors the United States in a lot of ways.”