The Hollywood Book of Death: The Bizarre, Often Sordid, Passings of More than 125 American Movie and TV Idols by James Robert Parish

Author:James Robert Parish [Parish, James Robert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9780071784764
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Published: 2001-11-29T01:00:00+00:00

Gilda Radner

June 28, 1946–May 20, 1989

It definitely was not supposed to happen this way. She was America’s clown princess, a quirky individual with inner beauty to spare who had spent years mocking the absurdities of life and making a nation laugh. Then, only a few years into her happy marriage to screen comedian Gene Wilder, she developed ovarian cancer, a disease difficult to diagnose in its early stages and often not detected until it is too late to save the patient. If there is any meaning to the frightening, frustrating, and painful odyssey Gilda endured, it is that her publicized plight has made the world far more sensitive to early diagnosis and treatment of this horrible disease.

The future comedian was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1946, the second child of hotel businessman Herman Radner and his wife, Henrietta (Dworkin) Radner, a legal secretary. Gilda was named after the popular Rita Hayworth movie of the same name that came out that year. When Gilda was 12, Herman Radner developed a brain tumor. He lingered in pain for two years before dying, the horrifying experience leaving an indelible impression on his traumatized daughter.

In 1964, Gilda graduated from a private school and then attended the University of Michigan. For six years, she hung around Ann Arbor taking undergraduate courses, frequently dropping out of the curriculum because she refused to follow the rules. When she was on campus, she was active in theater. In 1969, she fell in love with a Canadian sculptor and moved to Toronto, but that relationship ended 16 months later.

Wallowing in low self-esteem, Gilda found herself suddenly fascinated while watching a musical at a local avant-garde theater. She instinctively now knew where she belonged. She took a job at the theater, first in the box office and then working in pantomime shows for elementary-school children. This experience led to a year with the Toronto company of Godspell in 1972. From there, the blossoming comedian joined the local branch of Second City, an improvisational comedy group. Her equally spontaneous coworkers included Dan Aykroyd and Eugene Levy. By 1974, she was in New York City, appearing in The National Lampoon Show with John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis.

Gilda had known Canadian entertainer Lorne Michaels since her early Toronto days as a performer. When NBC signed him to put together the innovative Saturday Night Live, he hired Gilda to join his Not Ready for Prime Time Players, who also included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman. Working within the program’s weekly onslaught of outrageous comedy, Gilda developed into a nationally known TV personality, renowned for her bawdy, physical humor and raucous characterizations.

Gilda remained with Saturday Night Live through 1980. By then, she was also working on Broadway (Gilda Radner Live, 1979), in movies (First Family, 1980), and in TV specials. While making the movie Hanky Panky (1982), she and her costar Gene Wilder fell in love. They wed in the south of France in September 1984.

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