‘Lethal Weapon’ actress Mary Ellen Trainor dies at 62

LOS ANGELES – Character actress and philanthropist Mary Ellen Trainor, who appeared in “The Goonies” and “Lethal Weapon” films, has died.

Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy confirmed on Monday that Trainor, a longtime friend, passed away at home in Montecito, California, on May 20. She was 62.

Trainor got her start in the film business as a producer’s assistant on a number of movies including the 1979 Steven Spielberg film “1941,” which her eventual husband, director Robert Zemeckis, wrote. After the couple married in 1980, Zemeckis cast Trainor in her first film, “Romancing the Stone,” as the kidnapped sister of Kathleen Turner’s character.

Zemeckis and Trainor divorced in 2000.

In addition to a number of cameos in Zemeckis’ films, Trainor became a regular fixture in some of the biggest films of the 1980s. She played a police psychiatrist in “Lethal Weapon” and its sequels, a television reporter in “Die Hard” and the mother of two main characters in “The Goonies.”