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In death, Rodney finally gets some respect

CBC News | Oct. 6, 2004

LOS ANGELES - Self-deprecating U.S. comedian Rodney Dangerfield, known for his one-liners and famous catchphrase "I don't get no respect," died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 82.

Dangerfield died at the UCLA Medical Center, the hospital where he had undergone heart valve replacement surgery on Aug. 25. In late September, his wife Joan announced that he had slipped into a coma while recovering from the surgery.


Rodney Dangerfield (AP photo)

A publicist said that Dangerfield suffered a small stroke after the operation and had developed complications. However, he had emerged from the coma during the past week.

A regular on The Tonight Show and elsewhere on U.S. television for more than 40 years, Dangerfield will most likely be remembered as the fidgety, bug-eyed comedian clad in a black suit and white shirt with collar buttoned too tight, delivering self-deprecating one-liners followed inevitably with him telling the audience, "I don't get no respect."

He first delivered his trademark line in a New York club to get more laughs out of an old joke.

"I had this joke: `I played hide and seek; they wouldn't even look for me,'" he explained in a 1986 interview.

"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."'

Finding shelter in laughs

Born Jacob Cohen on Nov. 22, 1921 in Long Island, N.Y., Dangerfield grew up poor in a single-parent home. Having to work after-school jobs and feeling inferior to his schoolmates, he compensated by being funny and began writing and archiving jokes as a teen.

At the age of 19, he adopted the name Jack Roy and began life as a standup comedian, working small comedy gigs while maintaining day jobs driving laundry and fish trucks. At 27, he married Joyce Indig and gave up his meagre comedy earnings for suburban life.

After settling in New Jersey, however, the couple fought, divorcing in 1962. Though they briefly remarried, they would divorce again. He married his second wife, Joan, in 1993.


Rodney and Joan

Later-life success

He returned to comedy and show business at the age of 42.

"It was like a need. I had to work. I had to tell jokes. I had to write them and tell them," he once said. "It was like a fix. I had the habit."

However, he didn't want to break in a new act under his past pseudonym. A New York club owner came up with the absurd name Rodney Dangerfield and it stuck.

Soon, he began landing TV gigs, eventually making 70 appearances on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. After his ex-wife died, he opened Dangerfield's nightclub in New York so he could stay close to and raise his two children.

Dangerfield ventured into acting and writing for movies, most notably in the hit 1980 comedy Caddyshack, but claimed that he didn't like film or TV series.

"I need the immediate feedback of people laughing," he once said.

Still, over the years, he went on to star in films like Back to School, Meet Wally Sparks, Little Nicky and Natural Born Killers. Prior to his heart surgery, Dangerfield also released his autobiography, It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.

Dangerfield remained playful until the end: at a press conference just before his operation in August, he joked: "If things go right, I'll be there about a week, and if things don't go right, I'll be there about an hour-and-a-half."

Written by CBC News Online staff

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kapowie

the world is going to miss a guy like this

See ya Rodney

TimeGuardian

I'll smoke my next bowl in in his honor.

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Consequences dictate a course of action... It doesen't matter what's right, it's only wrong if you get caught. - tool

melanotaenia

I still remember him from the Caddyshack; what a funny movie and what a great role he played...........he will be missed

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TimeGuardian

This happends right after he comes out of the closet as a pot smoker, which i'm glad got out of him before he died.

It made me give him even more respect

 

smoking_joe_lee

Good story about a great man. He will be missed. What's with the title though? This man has been a respected actor and comedian for many, many years now. When it comes to making people laugh, as Aritha Franklin might say he could "tcb" (take care of buisness) and making people laugh is what Rodney Dangerfield means to me!

xxdr_zombiexx

I remember him from his regular appearences on the Johnny Carson show...back in the day.

He just got funnier and funnier. And even though he preferred stand-up, he was hysterical in Caddyshack.

He came out of that smoky closet after he was a huge success, and I have no recollection of him getting busted by anybody.

That's freedom under prohibition.

I, of course, have been wondering what words he would want on his tombstone...

I am sure he would encourage people to make suggestions.

He's a legend now.

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

Kannibal

Maybe just post your favorite Dangerfield joke? Well here is mine...

My wife cut me down to 1x a month for sex,its not so bad though,I know 2 other guys she cut out all together.

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Keep the wall of reality and fantasy high enough not to fall over but low enough to see the other side.

ThugLife469

Yes, he will be missed. I dedicate my next Philly all for him. Peace Rodney.



Cannabis users don't get no respect. no respect.



Peace


ThugLife

xxdr_zombiexx

Brilliant.

Wish I'd thought of that one......