Greta Hess

Mrs. Hess
Actor	Marian Seldes
Appearances	Home Alone 3

Mrs. Greta Hess is Alex´s neighbor in Home Alone 3, and is considered the deuteragonist of the film. She is portrayed by Marian Seldes. She is initially shown to be a very grouchy and unfriendly person, but this changes after Alex saves her life.

Biography

Home Alone 3

At the beginning of Home Alone 3, she is returning home to Chicago after a trip to San Francisco. At the airport, her luggage gets mixed up with a group of criminals who are working for a North Korean terrorist organization. The loaf of sour-dough bread that Mrs. Hess bought on her trip is replaced by a toy car containing a top secret computer chip. When she returns home, she gives the car to Alex as a reward for shoveling snow from her driveway, but lectures him for scratching in front of a lady. Later on in the movie, the four criminals track the chip to Chicago and decide to search every home in Alex's neighborhood to find it. They eventually find out that Alex has it (and that Mrs. Hess gave it to him), and start chasing after him.

In order to keep Mrs. Hess from interfering with their plans (and as a punishment for taking their chip at the airport), Alice and Mr. Beaupre trick Mrs. Hess. They tell her that they are a couple that has just moved into the neighborhood, and are waiting for a package to be delivered to their house. They tell her that the driver got confused, took the package to Mrs Hess' house, and left it in her garage when nobody answered the door. Mr. Beaupre leaves, but Alice and Mrs. Hess go into the garage. Alice closes the garage door when Mrs. Hess is not looking, waylays her, straps her to a lawn chair with white duct tape, and seals her mouth shut with a piece of the tape. Alice then leaves Mrs. Hess in the garage with the back door open so she will freeze to death. Later on, after Alex escapes from the criminals, he runs into Mrs Hess' garage and sees her taped to the chair. He removes the tape from her mouth and tells her "You're ok. I'm here now." He then puts his jacket on her to keep her warm and unties her. After untying her, he helps her get into her house and offers to make her a bowl of soup. Mrs. Hess acts more friendly toward Alex because of this. She also admits that he is a very sweet young man and that she never took any time to get to know him.

At the end of the film, when Alex asks her if she had gotten the chicken pox once, Mrs. Hess thinks for a bit, and then answers, "I had the chicken pox... when Herbert Hoover was in the White House", and then smiles along with Alex, while Agent Stuckey and others laugh. When Stan's parrot and Alex's mouse Doris appear, playing with the toy car Mrs. Hess had given him, Mrs. Hess laughs in amusement, along with Molly and Stan.

Trivia

• She plays a sort of similar role to Old Man Marley and the Pigeon Lady. However, the only difference is that she is actually antagonistic towards Alex Pruitt, whereas the previous two only unintentionally scared Kevin McCallister until he got to know what they were really like.
  • Also, unlike the previous two characters, she doesn't end up saving Alex's life; instead, Alex saves hers after she is put in a bad situation and rendered physically helpless by the criminals.
• Her first name isn't given.
• She is widowed, which could be likely because of her living by herself and her name of "Mrs.". This is likely why she is so unhappy and grouchy, though she becomes a much more friendly person after Alex befriends her and saves her life. 
• Mrs. Hess does mention once that she is retired, meaning that she had probably held a job for a number of years until she retired.
• Mrs. Hess drives a 1984 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz.
• Mrs. Hess is a smoker who enjoys Long Island Iced Teas.
• Even though they don't say Mrs. Hess' name, when the antagonists intercept Karen Pruitt's call, it shows the residents of Washington Street's phone numbers. If you look closely, you can see Mrs. Hess' name is Greta.
• Since Mrs. Hess had the chicken pox when Herbert Hoover was in the White House, she would be 75 years old or older. This is further evidenced when Stan Pruitt refers to her as "the evil octogenarian". This would put her at approximately 80 years old or slightly older.