Gilda Radner
| Gilda Radner | |
|---|---|
Radner with her husband, Gene Wilder, in the film Haunted Honeymoon, 1986
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| Born |
Gilda Susan Radner June 28, 1946 Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | May 20, 1989 (aged 42) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Michigan |
| Occupation | Comedian, actress |
| Years active | 1973–1989 |
| Known for | Original cast member of Saturday Night Live |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Awards |
Emmy Award 1977 Saturday Night Live Grammy Award 1990 (posthumously) |
Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American comedian, actress, and one of seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. In her routines, Radner specialized in broad and obnoxious parodies of television stereotypes, such as annoying advice specialists and news anchors. She also portrayed those characters in her successful one-woman show on Broadway in 1979.
Radner died from ovarian cancer in 1989, and her life and legacy from SNL established her as an iconic figure in the history of American comedy. Her widower, Gene Wilder, carried out her personal wish that information about her illness would help other cancer victims.
Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Jewish parents, Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman. Through her mother, Radner was a second cousin of business executive Steve Ballmer. She grew up in Detroit with a nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and on whom she based her famous character Emily Litella), and an older brother named Michael. She attended the exclusive University Liggett School in Detroit (it began its relocation to Grosse Pointe later that year). Toward the end of her life, Radner wrote in her autobiography, It's Always Something, that during her childhood and young adulthood, she battled numerous eating disorders: "I coped with stress by having every possible eating disorder from the time I was nine years old. I have weighed as much as 160 pounds and as little as 93. When I was a kid, I overate constantly. My weight distressed my mother and she took me to a doctor who put me on Dexedrine diet pills when I was ten years old."
Radner was close to her father, who operated Detroit's Seville Hotel, where many nightclub performers and actors stayed while performing in the city. He took her on trips to New York to see Broadway shows. As Radner wrote in It's Always Something, when she was 12, her father developed a brain tumor, and the symptoms began so suddenly that he told people his eyeglasses were too tight. Within days, he was bedridden and unable to communicate, and remained in that condition until his death two years later.
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