posted October 11, 2004 07:36 PM
Rodney Dangerfield dead at 82
Comedian known for 'no respect'
Wednesday, October 6, 2004 Posted: 8:53 AM EDT (1253 GMT)
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Rodney Dangerfield, the bug-eyed comic whose self-deprecating one-liners brought him stardom in clubs, television and movies and made his lament "I don't get no respect" a catchphrase, died Tuesday. He was 82.
Dangerfield, who fell into a coma after undergoing heart surgery, died at 1:20 p.m., said publicist Kevin Sasaki. Dangerfield had a heart valve replaced August 25 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
Sasaki said in a statement that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and developed infectious and abdominal complications. But in the past week he had emerged from the coma, the publicist said.
"When Rodney emerged, he kissed me, squeezed my hand and smiled for his doctors," Dangerfield's wife, Joan, said in the statement. The comic is also survived by two children from a previous marriage.
As a comic, Dangerfield -- clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight -- convulsed audiences with lines such as: "When I was born, I was so ugly that the doctor slapped my mother"; "When I started in show business, I played one club that was so far out my act was reviewed in Field and Stream"; and "Every time I get in an elevator, the operator says the same thing to me: 'Basement?' "
In a 1986 interview, he explained the origin of his "respect" trademark:
"I had this joke: 'I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me.' To make it work better, you look for something to put in front of it: I was so poor, I was so dumb, so this, so that. I thought, 'Now what fits that joke?' Well, 'No one liked me' was all right. But then I thought, a more profound thing would be, 'I get no respect.' "
He tried it at a New York club, and the joke drew a bigger response than ever. He kept the phrase in the act, and it seemed to establish a bond with his audience. After hearing him perform years later, Jack Benny remarked: "Me, I get laughs because I'm cheap and 39. Your image goes into the soul of everyone."
'Intrinsically funny'
Flowers were placed on his star on Hollywood Boulevard after word of his death, and the marquee of The Improv, a comedy club where Dangerfield often performed, read "Rest In Peace Rodney."
Teller, half of the magic duo "Penn & Teller," said Dangerfield hardly needed material since he was "intrinsically funny." He said Dangerfield at times would appear while they were performing in Las Vegas, walking around the casino wearing a satin dressing gown and sandals with a beautiful girl on his arm.
"He was so confident," Teller said. "He was Rodney, and he could do anything."
Comedian Adam Sandler, who starred with Dangerfield in 2000's "Little Nicky," said the affection felt for Dangerfield "when you saw him on TV or in the movies was doubled when you had the pleasure to meet him. He was a hero who lived up to the hype."
Dangerfield had a strange career in show business. At 19 he started as a standup comedian. He made only a fair living, traveling a great deal and appearing in rundown joints. Married at 27, he decided he couldn't support a family on his meager earnings.
He returned to comedy at 42 and began to attract notice. He appeared on the Ed Sullivan show seven times and on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson more than 70 times.
Hollywood's Laugh Factory pays tribute to Rodney Dangerfield on Tuesday night.
After his first major film role in "Caddyshack," he began starring in his own movies.
He was born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921, in Babylon on New York's Long Island. Growing up in the borough of Queens, his mother was uncaring and his father was absent. As Philip Roy, the father and his brother toured in vaudeville as a pantomime comedy-juggling act, Roy and Arthur. Young Jacob's parents divorced, and the mother struggled to support her daughter and son.
The boy helped bring in money by selling ice cream at the beach and working for a grocery store. "I found myself going to school with kids and then in the afternoon I'd be delivering groceries to their back door," he recalled. "I ended up feeling inferior to everybody."
He ingratiated himself to his schoolmates by being funny; at 15 he was writing down jokes and storing them in a duffel bag. When he was 19, he adopted the name Jack Roy and tried out the jokes at a resort in the Catskills, training ground for Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar and other comedians. The job paid $12 a week plus room and meals.
In New York, he drove a laundry and fish truck, taking time off to hunt for work as a comedian. The jobs came slowly, but in time he was averaging $300 a week.
He married Joyce Indig, a singer he met at a New York club. Both had wearied of the uncertainty of a performer's life.
"We wanted to lead a normal life," he remarked in a 1986 interview. "I wanted a house and a picket fence and kids, and the heck with show business. Love is more important, you see. When the show is over, you're alone."
The couple settled in Englewood, New Jersey, had two children, Brian and Melanie, and he worked selling paint and siding. But the idyllic suburban life soured as the pair battled. The couple divorced in 1962, remarried a year later and again divorced.
In 1993, Dangerfield married Joan Child, a flower importer.
'I had to tell jokes'
At age 42, he returned to show business as Jack Roy. He remembered in 1986: "It was like a need. I had to work. I had to tell jokes. I had to write them and tell them. It was like a fix. I had the habit."
Even during his domestic years, he continued filling the duffel bag with jokes. He didn't want to break in his new act with any notice, so he asked the owner of New York's Inwood Lounge, George McFadden, not to bill him as Jack Roy. McFadden came up with the absurd name Rodney Dangerfield. It stuck.
Dangerfield's bookings improved, and he landed television gigs. After his ex-wife died, he took over the responsibility of raising his two children. He decided to quit touring and open a New York nightclub, Dangerfield's, so he could stay close to home. A beer commercial and the Carson shows brought him national attention.
His film debut came in 1971 with "The Projectionist," which he described as "the kind of a movie that you went to the location on the subway." He did better in 1980 with "Caddyshack," in which he held his own with such comics as Chevy Chase, Ted Knight and Bill Murray.
Despite his good reviews, Dangerfield claimed he didn't like movies or TV series: "Too much waiting around, too much memorizing; I need that immediate feedback of people laughing."
Still, he continued starring in and sometimes writing films such as "Easy Money," "Back to School," "Moving," "The Scout," "Ladybugs" and "Meet Wally Sparks." He turned dramatic as a sadistic father in Oliver Stone's 1994 "Natural Born Killers."
In 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected Dangerfield's application for membership. A letter from Roddy McDowall of the actors branch explained that the comedian had failed to execute "enough of the kinds of roles that allow a performer to demonstrate the mastery of his craft."
The ultimate rejection, and Dangerfield played it to the hilt. He had established his own Web site ("I went out and bought an Apple Computer; it had a worm in it"), and his fans used it to express their indignation. The public reaction prompted the academy to reverse itself and offer membership. Dangerfield declined.
"They don't even apologize or nothing," he said. "They give no respect at all -- pardon the pun -- to comedy."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/10/05/obit.dangerfield.ap/
A little bit about his depression:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001098/bio
And the other one...
'Superman' Star Reeve Dies at Age 52
By JIM FITZGERALD, AP
MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (Oct. 11) - "Superman" actor Christopher Reeve, who turned personal tragedy into a public crusade and from his wheelchair became the nation's most recognizable spokesman for spinal cord research, has died. He was 52.
Reeve died Sunday of complications from an infection caused by a bedsore. He went into cardiac arrest Saturday, while at his Pound Ridge home, then fell into a coma and died Sunday at a hospital surrounded by his family, his publicist said.
His advocacy for stem cell research helped it emerge as a major campaign issue between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. His name was even mentioned by Kerry during the second presidential debate on Friday.
In the last week Reeve had developed a serious systemic infection, a common problem for people living with paralysis who develop bedsores and depend on tubes and other medical devices needed for their care. He entered the hospital Saturday.
Dana Reeve thanked her husband's personal staff of nurses and aides, "as well as the millions of fans from around the world."
"He put up with a lot," his mother, Barbara Johnson, told the syndicated television show "The Insider." "I'm glad that he is free of all those tubes."
Before the 1995 horse-riding accident that caused his paralysis, Reeve's athletic, 6-foot-4-inch frame and love of adventure made him a natural choice for the title role in the first "Superman" movie in 1978. He insisted on performing his own stunts.
"Look, I've flown, I've become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I've faced my peers, I've befriended children and small animals and I've rescued cats from trees," Reeve told the Los Angeles Times in 1983, just before the release of the third "Superman" movie. "What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn't been done?"
Though he owed his fame to it, Reeve made a concerted effort to, as he often put it, "escape the cape." He played an embittered, crippled Vietnam veteran in the 1980 Broadway play "Fifth of July," a lovestruck time-traveler in the 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time," and an aspiring playwright in the 1982 suspense thriller "Deathtrap."
More recent films included John Carpenter's "Village of the Damned," and the HBO movies "Above Suspicion" and "In the Gloaming," which he directed. Among his other film credits are "The Remains of the Day," "The Aviator," and "Morning Glory."
Reeve's life changed completely after he broke his neck in May 1995 when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Culpeper, Va.
Enduring months of therapy to allow him to breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator, Reeve emerged to lobby Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury. He moved an Academy Award audience to tears with a call for more films about social issues.
"Hollywood needs to do more," he said in the 1996 Oscar awards appearance. "Let's continue to take risks. Let's tackle the issues. In many ways our film community can do it better than anyone else."
He returned to directing, and even returned to acting in a 1998 production of "Rear Window," a modern update of the Hitchcock thriller about a man in a wheelchair who is convinced a neighbor has been murdered. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild award for best actor in a TV movie or miniseries.
Quotes From Reeve
AP
On Life After the Accident:
"I have less time for superficial talk... I am eager to tell the truth, and hear it from others, more than ever before."
On His Heroes:
"I believe that the real heroes today are ordinary people who persevere and endure against overwhelming obstacles."
On Acting After His Injury:
"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough... I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face."
On Living With a Disability:
"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life."
On Whether He'd Mind Being Remembered as 'Superman':
"Not at all, as long as they also recognize some of the other work I've done."
Sources: AP, AOL
"I was worried that only acting with my voice and my face, I might not be able to communicate effectively enough to tell the story," Reeve said. "But I was surprised to find that if I really concentrated, and just let the thoughts happen, that they would read on my face."
Reeve also made several guest appearances on the WB series "Smallville" as Dr. Swann, a scientist who gave the teenage Clark Kent insight into his future as Superman.
In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger, and a specialized workout regimen made his legs and arms stronger. With rigorous therapy, involving repeated electrical stimulation of the muscles, he also regained sensation in other parts of his body. He vowed to walk again.
"I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don't mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery," Reeve said.
Kerry, campaigning in Santa Fe, N.M., said Reeve made great strides toward curing conditions like his.
"Chris was an inspiration to all of us," Kerry said. "His tireless efforts will always be remembered and honored and, in part because of his work, millions will one day walk again."
Dr. John McDonald treated Reeve as director of the Spinal Cord Injury Program at Washington University in St. Louis. He called Reeve "one of the most intense individuals I've ever met in my life."
"Before him there was really no hope," McDonald said. "If you had a spinal cord injury like his there was not much that could be done, but he's changed all that. He's demonstrated that there is hope and that there are things that can be done."
Dr. Raymond Onders, who implanted electrodes in Reeve's diaphragm in a groundbreaking surgery to help him breathe, said the sore that led to the infection was not Reeve's only recent health problem.
"Many different problems develop after nine years of being dependent on a ventilator, not being able to move yourself, having intestinal problems. ... It just slowly builds up over the years," Onders told ABC's "Good Morning America."
More on This Story
· Reeve's Most Memorable Movies
· Research Gives Hope to Paralyzed Patients
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
· AOL Search: Christopher Reeve
Reeve was born Sept. 25, 1952, in New York City, son of a novelist and a newspaper reporter. About age 10, he made his first stage appearance - in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Yeoman of the Guard" at a theater in Princeton, N.J.
After graduating from Cornell University in 1974, he landed a part as coldhearted bigamist Ben Harper on the soap opera "Love of Life." He also performed frequently on stage, winning his first Broadway role as the grandson of Katharine Hepburn's character in "A Matter of Gravity."
Reeve's first movie role was a minor one in the submarine disaster movie "Gray Lady Down," released in 1978. "Superman" soon followed. Reeve was selected for the role from among about 200 aspirants.
While filming "Superman" in London, Reeve met modeling agency co-founder Gae Exton, and the two began a relationship that lasted several years. They had a son and a daughter, but never wed.
Reeve later married Dana Morosini; they had one son, Will, 12. Reeve also is survived by his mother, Barbara Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin Reeve; and the children from his relationship with Exton, Matthew, 25, and Alexandra, 21.
Funeral plans were not immediately announced.
In his 1998 book, "Still Me," he recalled that after the accident, when he contemplating giving up, his wife told him: "I want you to know that I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you. And I love you."
His children helped, too, he told interviewer Barbara Walters.
"I could see how much they needed me and wanted me ... and how lucky we all are and that my brain is on straight."
10/11/04 13:32 EDT