She wears a head scarf, goes skydiving, and brings Gordo sushi when he wants brisket
Doris Roberts, the award-winning American actress who for decades stole scenes as brassy matriarch figures in television and film, died on Sunday in Los Angeles at the age of 90.
The wave of media coverage around her death has mostly been pegged to her work in Everybody Loves Raymond — she earned four of her five Emmys as Marie Barone, Ray Romano’s flamboyant mom — but like her character on the show, the actress also had the habit of showing up colorfully and unexpectedly in all sorts of places. Older movie-watchers will recall her from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or The Taking of Pelham 123, twenty-something American bros got to know her in Grandma’s Boy, but millennials may best remember her 2003 guest appearance in the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire.
YouTube is the go-to marketplace for all kinds of nostalgia, and most of the show has been curated there — including the episode that features Roberts as the nebbish Gordo’s funky New Age grandmother Ruth. Gordo wants her to make brisket; Ruth brings him sushi. Dramatic tension abounds when Gordo gets fed up with her doing things like skydiving instead of, say, knitting. They make up over a Japanese chabudai, eating brisket and kugel with chopsticks. The video was removed by YouTube after this post was initially published.