Ellen Albertini Dow brought a dancer's timing to small comedy roles, often as older women behaving as nobody expected. We enjoy the energy and precision.
Fi1m perspective
Ellen Albertini Dow plays Rosie in The Wedding Singer (1998) with a performer's relish for music and movement. Her brisk timing and physical confidence give us something to enjoy beyond the sight of an older woman behaving unexpectedly. We laughed at the vigour of her performance, because she commits to the music without making the effort the joke. It is a small comic role, and she treats it as work worth doing properly.
That suits a film we recommend for its warmth and for Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore's appealing romance. Dow's lively turn belongs with that generosity, even though the broader humour sometimes gets in the leads' way. The middle drifts, and we would not claim that a good supporting performance fixes it. Still, her enthusiasm is a considerable help in a comedy that wants us to feel kindly towards its people.
Her screen career began with American Drive-In (1985), when she was already in her seventies. Small supporting parts remained her territory, including a choir nun in Sister Act (1992) and Disco Dottie in 54 (1998). Her background in dance and theatre helps explain the ease with which she makes movement part of a comic turn. Grandmother roles followed in Road Trip (2000) and Wedding Crashers (2005). These were chiefly brief supporting appearances, so she had to establish a character quickly, with little opportunity to develop one.
The reservation is that so many of her parts depend on an older woman's lack of inhibition being sufficient material for a scene. As Grandma Mary Cleary in Wedding Crashers, Dow supplies blunt family commentary, but the familiar casting encourages us to wait for the outburst. Her timing deserves attention even when the writing is content to produce a startled laugh. We would start with The Wedding Singer, with the caveat that its broadest jokes are not always its most appealing ones.
Biography
Ellen Albertini Dow was an American character actress and acting coach. She trained at Cornell University, graduating in 1935 with degrees in theatre, and worked as a drama and dance teacher for three decades before beginning her screen career in the 1980s.
Dow appeared in numerous films and television series, often playing feisty elderly women. She is best known for her role as the rapping grandmother Rosie in The Wedding Singer (1998), performing 'Rapper's Delight'. Other credits include choir nun in Sister Act (1992) and its 1993 sequel, Grandma Mary Cleary in Wedding Crashers (2005), Disco Dottie in 54 (1998), and Mrs. Baer in the series Moonlighting (1985).
She also had guest roles in series including The Golden Girls, Seinfeld, Shameless and New Girl. Dow was married to Eugene Francis Dow Jr. from 1951 until his death in 2004.
