Norma Michaels
Norma Michaels is an actor, born 1924.
Six decades of work, from a 1954 debut to a last credit in 2018, and a job description the credits barely vary at all: Norma Michaels played somebody's grandmother.
The credits read like an inventory of a specific corner of American comedy. Micah's Grandmother in Easy A. Old Irish Woman in Wedding Crashers. Older Lady in Salon in You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Elderly Women in Bad Ass. Upscale Elderly Lady in Love at First Hiccup. Old Lady in Rules of Engagement. These are the parts that exist so that a scene can land a joke and move on, and someone has to be good enough at them to be hired again, which she was, for decades.
The exception, and the reason her name is known at all, is Josephine on the CBS sitcom The King of Queens, a part with a name and a personality attached to it. She also had actual characters late on: Doris's Mother in Hello, My Name Is Doris, Mrs. Johanssen in Playing House, Grandma Bailey in Emma's Chance, the last of those made when she was in her nineties.
There is one detour on the record worth mentioning. During the 1980s she worked for a while as a counselor and therapist. Then she went back to being cast as everyone's grandmother. She died in 2020.
Movies (8)
TV (3)
Where to start with Norma Michaels
Her one sustained role is The King of Queens, where Josephine gets what almost nothing else on this list gave her, which is repeat appearances and a personality. Start there.
The films are a different exercise: you are watching a specialist do a very narrow job extremely well. Easy A uses her best, letting her land an actual punchline instead of merely supplying a reaction. Hello, My Name Is Doris is the closest thing here to real dramatic material, since the film takes an older woman seriously as a subject rather than a prop. Wedding Crashers and You Don't Mess with the Zohan are pure comic furniture, which is a compliment about her timing and a complaint about the writing.
Playing House and Emma's Chance are for anyone who wants to see how long she kept going. The answer is: much longer than most.