Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comedian and actor,
who gained fame for his self-deprecating one-liners
(i.e. "When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor
slapped my mother!", "I called the suicide hotline and
they put me on hold!") and signature catch phrase "I
don't get no respect!" died on October 4 at the UCLA
Medical Center. He had lapsed into a coma after
undergoing heart surgery this past August. He was 82.
He was born Jacob Cohen in Babylon, Long Island, New
York on November 22, 1921. His father was a
vaudevillian performer who played professionally as
Phil Roy. Known as something of a cut-up in high
school, he started performing comedy when he was
20, and spent the next 10 years working alongthe
Atlantic coast under the name Jack Roy.
His career was temporarily sidelined with family
responsiblities - he married Joyce Indig in 1949 and
she soon gave birth to two children: Brian and
Melanie. With a family to support, he sold aluminum
siding and lived in New Jersey, yet still held onto
his dream of being a stand-up comic. In 1961, he
divorced his wife (by all accounts his marriage had
been an unhappy one), and he hit the road again as
Rodney Dangerfield. By the mid-60s, Rondey was
hitting his stride, following a some successful
nightclub appearances in Manhattan and Atlantic City.
At this point, he had developed his stage persona as a
harassed schmo, always tugging at his tie and padding
down his sweated brow. His persistancy paid off when
he made his first television appearances in 1967:
The Ed Sullivan Show and
The Merv Griffin
Show both raised his profile, but what really made
Rodney was his July 29, 1969 debut on
The Tonight
Show with Johnny Carson. With his flurry of
one-liners, goggle eyes and, of course, "I don't get
no respect!" plea, audiences loved him and Rodney
would make over 70 appearances over the next 30 years
on
The Tonight Show for both Johnny and
eventual host, Jay Leno.
Around this time, Rodney garnered his first film role,
as an irritable theater manager in
The
Projectionist (1971), but he would have to wait almost
10 years later before he struck box-office gold. The
film was
Caddyshack (1980), and as Al Czervik,
the loudly dressed, obnoxious but lovable
millionaire who crashes a snotty Golf Club, Rodney may not have displayed great acting skills, but his comic
personality was vibrant and engaging, and with the
comedy being one of the biggest hits of the year, he
was now a star.
His follow-up to
Caddyshack,
Easy Money
(1983), followed the same formula (he played a baby
photgrapher who inherits money), but the tone was much
nastier, and the crirtics panned it. He rebounded
though with the biggest hit of his career,
Back to
School (1986). The plot was simple, a self-made
millionaire goes back to college to prove his son his
worth only to fall in love in the process, grossed
over $100 million. Indeed, it looked like Rodney
Dangerfield had all the respect in the world.
His career kept taking surprise turns in the '90s: he
was an in-demand "guest voice" on such animated
projects like
Rover Dangerfield,
The
Simpsons, and
Dr. Katz, Professional
Therapist. Yet, the biggest surprise by far was
his dramatic turn as an abusive, alcoholic father in
Oliver Stone's
Natural Born Killers (1994). For
his performance, he received glowing reviews, but
ill-health was becoming an issue for him, and Rodney
had to curtail his schedule considerably after this.
He returned to the screen as the Devil in the Adam
Sandler comedy
Little Nicky (2000), but on his
80th birthday (November 22, 2001), he suffered a mild
heart attack, and in the Spring of 2003, he underwent
brain surgery to improve his blood flow in preparation
for an upcoming heart-valve replacement surgery. This
year started off brightly for him: he made another
film appearance,
Angles with Angles; released
his autobiography in May entitled
It Ain't Easy
Being Me and in just the past two months appeared
on television for
Jimmy Kimmel Live, and in an
episode of the CBS sitcom
Still Standing
playing a wisecracking, next-door neighbor. Sadly,
this flurry of reactivity was not to last. On August
24, he entered UCLA Medical Center for heart
valve-replacement surgery, but complications from an
infection after the operation led to a coma, and he
reamined in vegetative state for the last six weeks of
his life. He is survived by his wife of 11 years,
Joan Child; his son, Brian; and daughter, Melanie.
by Michael T. Toole
