Alice Drummond made brief appearances matter through fear, bewilderment and quiet pathos. We value her vulnerability, though the repeated casting as eccentric elderly women too often left her with a type to play and little time to develop it.
Fi1m perspective
The opening scare in Ghostbusters (1984) depends on Alice Drummond's librarian looking as though she could do with some help. Ivan Reitman's comedy gives her little time to establish that vulnerability, and she makes it count. We were unsettled by her fear, because she makes the disturbance feel serious before the film settles into its jokes. The team's easy conversation is the chief reason we recommend the film; Drummond gives its supernatural premise a firm start.
Small parts of this kind became her regular work, though they were not the limit of her ambition. Her stage roles tended towards offbeat supporting characters; after her first film role in 1970, she became a frequent character player in features from the 1980s. She put the frustration plainly: “I wanted to play a lead, and nobody would let me.” The elderly, befuddled or infirm women she was repeatedly asked to play gave her a recognisable place in an ensemble, but often little room to develop a character.
In Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990), she plays Lucy Fishman, one of the catatonic patients, and her quiet pathos contributes to the film's convincing concern for them. Robert De Niro and Robin Williams carry the drama, and our recommendation rests chiefly on them. Drummond's contribution is smaller, but it gives us another reason to care about the patients as individuals. The script and score press too hard at times; her vulnerable presence does not need that insistence.
Her later work kept returning to comic eccentricity and quiet vulnerability. As Mrs Finkle in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), she supplies a brief comic interruption. Playing Sister Veronica in Doubt (2008), she brings pathos to an ensemble that includes Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Those are useful contributions, but the repeated elderly supporting parts could leave her with little beyond an immediately recognisable type. Start with Ghostbusters for what she could establish quickly, then Awakenings for what she could add without taking the centre.
Biography
Alice Drummond was an American actress. Born Alice Elizabeth Ruyter in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on 21 May 1928, she graduated from Pembroke College at Brown University in 1950. She began her career in theatre, appearing on and off Broadway, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1970 for her performance in The Chinese.
Drummond was known for character roles in film and television. She played the librarian in the opening scene of Ghostbusters (1984), Lucy Fishman in Awakenings (1990), Mrs Finkle in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) and Sister Veronica in Doubt (2008). She also appeared in Synecdoche, New York (2008) and Furry Vengeance (2010). Drummond died in the Bronx, New York, on 30 November 2016.
