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| Actor and comedian Rodney Dangerfield was
renown for his line: 'I get no respect.'
(AP) |
Rodney Dangerfield, the goggle-eyed comic famed for his
self-deprecating one-liners
and signature phrase "I can't get no respect," died on Tuesday at age 82,
his spokesman said.
A veteran Las Vegas headliner and TV variety-show fixture who became a pop culture
sensation in middle age with a
string of broad film comedies starting with "Caddyshack" in 1980, Dangerfield
died at the UCLA Medical
Center, where he had undergone heart valve replacement surgery on Aug. 25,
spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.
Although his initial forays into show
business fizzled, Dangerfield
successfully restarted his career as a comedian in his 40s. Opening one of
America's first comedy clubs -- the now-famous Dangerfield's in Manhattan
-- he went on to become a national sensation in his own right and helped
launch the careers of such comics as Jim Carrey and Jerry Seinfeld.
His famous trademark white shirt and red tie are on permanent
display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Dangerfield suffered a stroke following his surgery in August and
"developed infectious and abdominal complications from which he did not
recover," Sasaki said.
During the past week, the entertainer
emerged from a coma he had slipped into sometime after the operation,
according to his wife, Joan. "When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed
my hand, and smiled for the doctors," she said in a statement.
A
native of New York's Long Island, Dangerfield had endured a series of
health problems and surgeries in recent years, including double-bypass
heart surgery in March 2000 and an operation three months later to correct
an aneurysm. He also suffered
a mild heart attack in November 2001. Last spring, he underwent brain
surgery.
A month later, Dangerfield greeted reporters at the
hospital dressed in a sports shirt and Bermuda shorts and declared, "My
brain is OK. I feel like a new man." Later, responding to a medical
question, he answered, "Ask me about things I'm familiar with, like drugs
or prostitution."
Born Jacob Cohen in Babylon, New York, in 1921,
Dangerfield began writing jokes as a teenager, struggling as a comic and
singing waiter in the "Borscht
Belt" resorts of the Catskill Mountains under the name of
Jack Roy in the 1940s.
Leaving show business to earn a living as a
house painter and aluminum siding salesman, he returned to the comedy
circuit about a decade later, this time as Rodney Dangerfield.
He
eventually opened a New York nightclub and became a nationally recognized
act with comedy albums and numerous TV appearances. Along the way he is
credited with helping give a start to an impressive array of once-obscure
talents who went on to become stars, among them Carrey, Seinfeld, Roseanne
and the late Sam Kinison.
Moving easily from nightclubs to TV to
commercials to film, Dangerfield remained popular well past the peak of
his career in the 1980s, forever tugging at his tie and drawing laughs
with his catch phrase "I can't get no respect."
Dangerfield made
his film debut in the 1971 low-budget comedy "The Projectionist," playing
the dual supporting roles of a tyrannical cinema manager and a serial
villain, The Bat.
But his big-screen breakout came in a string of
rowdy comedies in the 1980s -- "Caddyshack," "Easy Money" and "Back to
School." His movie appearances generally have mirrored his stand-up comedy
persona, with Dangerfield playing boisterous, casually ribald characters with a rapid-fire
patter of one-liners.
Later film roles included the coach of a
girl's soccer team in "Ladybugs" (1992), an abusive father in Oliver
Stone's "Natural Born Killers" (1994), a tabloid TV show reporter in "Meet
Wally Sparks" (1997) and a wannabe opera star in "The 4th Tenor" (2002).
In June, Dangerfield released his autobiography, "It's Not Easy
Bein' Me."
(Agencies) |
Updated: 2004-10-06 11:34