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The woman known as the “rapping granny” has passed away. Ellen Abertini Dow, the tiny little lady who spit a mean flow  in The Wedding Singer, died Monday (May 4) at age 101 her manager confirmed.

A retired acting coach, Down got her career on-screen career rolling in the ’80s, and pretty much cornered the market in acting gigs for lovable old people.

Reports the New York Times:

Ellen Albertini was born on Nov. 26, 1913, Mount Carmel, Pa., the seventh child of Italian immigrants. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater from Cornell University, then moved to New York City, where she studied dance with Hanya Holm and Martha Graham. She also studied acting with Michael Shurtleff and Uta Hagen, performed in Yiddish theater with Molly Picon and Menasha Skulnik and worked with the mimes Marcel Marceau and Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

She married Eugene Dow, an actor, in 1951. They moved to Los Angeles, where she taught drama at Los Angeles City College. She and her husband later taught at Pierce College in the Woodland Hills neighborhood, where Ms. Dow lived at her death.

Mr. Dow died in 2004. No immediate family members survive.

 

Her most notable performance is likely “Rapper’s Delight” in Adam Sandler’s 1998 cult classic flick. In a 2005 interview she said it was easy to spit the verse once she got in the zone. “As soon as I started to move to it, it just came naturally,” she said. “I still sing it all the time.”

Dow has appeared in  more than 75 shows and films including, Road Trip, Wedding CrashersSister Act 2: Back in the Habit, New Girl, Seinfeld, Shameless, The Wonder Years, and Wings.

Photo: YouTube