Obituaries

Ellen Albertini Dow, the Rapping Granny From The Wedding Singer, Has Died

Dow was 101 years old.

Ellen Albertini Dow as Rosie, the rapping grandma, in the 1998 film The Wedding Singer.
Ellen Albertini Dow as Rosie, the rapping grandma, in the 1998 film The Wedding Singer.

Ellen Albertini Dow, the actress perhaps best known as the rapping granny in the 1998 Adam Sandler film The Wedding Singer, died May 4 at the age of 101.

Born November 16, 1913, in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, Dow received her bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1935, before moving to New York and studying with the likes of Michael Shurtleff and Uta Hagen. In Paris, she studied with legendary mimes including Marcel Marceau and Jacques LeCoq. She performed alongside Molly Picon and Menasha Skulnik in the Borsht Belt circuit, as well as directed and choreographed productions including The Beggar's Opera at Carnegie Recital Hall, The Magic Flute, and Julius Caesar, among others. Her sole Broadway credit, in 1948, was Ballet Ballads, an evening of three music and dance pieces featuring songs by Jerome Moross and John Latouche.

Dow later moved west to begin a teaching career in drama, first at Los Angeles City College, and then Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, where her husband, the late Eugene Dow, launched a theater department in which they both taught. They were married from 1951 until his death in 2004.

She retired from teaching in 1985 and studied acting at the American Film Institute. Her dozens of television credits include the 1985 Twilight Zone reboot, Mr. Belvedere, Newhart, Murphy Brown, The Golden Girls, Family Matters, New Girl, and others. On screen, she made memorable appearances as a choir nun in Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

It was her Wedding Singer role that endeared her to the world. She played Rosie, the tough but kind grandmother of Sandler's Robbie Hart, who, in the film's climax, performed the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," in which she did all of her own vocal takes. You can watch it below: