Ellen Rose Albertini Dow (Ellen Dow)

Ellen Rose Albertini Dow

American Character Actress. Albertini Dow, a veteran of New York’s Yiddish theater and a former drama teacher in Los Angeles, was known for playing feisty old women after she resumed her acting career in her 70s. She studied acting in New York City, worked with mimes Marcel Marceau and Jacques LeCog in Paris and played the Borscht Belt as part of a comedy act before moving west to teach in the drama department at Los Angeles City College before transferring to Pierce College in the San Fernando Valley, where her husband Eugene Dow launched the theater department. She retired from teaching in 1985 and went on to study acting at the American Film Institute. She began landing roles in films such as ‘Tough Guys’ (1986), ‘Walk Like a Man’ (1987), ‘My Blue Heaven’ (1990), ‘Sister Act’ (1992), ‘Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit’ (1993) and ‘Radioland Murders’ (1994). Two of her most memorable roles were in 1998, first as Rosie in ‘The Wedding Singer’, where she stole the show with her rendition of “Rapper’s Delight”, followed by her appearance in ’54’, as Disco Dottie the coke-snorting, disco-dancing granny. Her television work includes appearances in such television series as ‘Moonlighting’, ‘Murphy Brown’, ‘The Golden Girls’, ‘The Wonder Years’, ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’, ‘ER’, ‘Seinfeld’, ‘Just Shoot Me’, ‘Will & Grace’, ‘Scrubs’, ‘Six Feet Under’ and ‘My Name is Earl’. (bio by: Louis M.)  Family links:  Parents:  Oliver Albertini (1876 – 1960)  Ellen M. Stanker Albertini (1882 – 1944)  Spouse:  Eugene Francis Dow (1916 – 2004)  Siblings:  Ida E. Albertini (1905 – 1999)*  William F. Albertini (1907 – 1997)*  Elmer O. Albertini (1912 – 2000)*  Ellen Rose Albertini Dow (1913 – 2015) *Calculated relationship

Born

  • November, 16, 1913
  • USA

Died

  • May, 05, 2015
  • USA

Cemetery

  • Saint Peter's Cemetery
  • Pennsylvania
  • USA

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