| Rodney
Dangerfield |
| Pseudonym |
Jack Roy |
| Birth name |
Jacob Cohen |
| Born |
November 22 1921(1921--)
Babylon, New York, U.S. |
| Died |
October 5 2004 (aged 82)
Los Angeles, California,
U.S. |
| Medium |
stand-up, television, film |
| Nationality |
 American |
| Years active |
1940-1949; 1963-2004 |
| Genres |
Character comedy, Word play, Black comedy |
| Subject(s) |
self-depreciation, depression,
childhood, marriage, human
sexuality, aging |
| Influenced |
Robert Klein, Chris Rock, Artie Lange |
| Spouse |
Joyce Indig (1949-1962; 1963-1970) (2 children)
Joan Child (1993-2004) |
| Notable works and roles |
Al Czervik in Caddyshack
HBO television specials
Thornton Melon in Back to School
Ed Wilson in Natural Born Killers |
| Website |
rodney.com |
| Grammy
Awards |
Best Comedy Recording
1981 No Respect |
| American Comedy Awards |
| Creative Achievement Award 1995 |
Rodney Dangerfield (November 22, 1921 –
October 5, 2004), born Jacob Cohen, was an
American comedian and actor, best known for the catchphrase "I don't get no respect" and
his monologues on that theme.
Early life and career
He was born in Long Island in the town of Babylon, the son of vaudevillian Phil Roy (Philip
Cohen). He would later say that his father "was never home — he was out looking to make other kids”, and that his mother "brought
him up all wrong”. As a teenager, he got his start writing jokes for standup comics; he
became one himself at 19 under the name Jack Roy. He struggled financially for nine years, at one point performing as a
singing waiter (he was fired), before giving up show business to take a job selling
aluminum siding to support his wife and family. He later said that he was so little known then
that, "At the time I quit, I was the only one who knew I quit!" In the early 1960s he started down what would be a long
road toward rehabilitating his career, still working as a salesman by day. He came to realize that what he lacked was an "image"
— a well-defined on-stage persona that audiences could relate to and that would distinguish him from similar comics. He took the
name Rodney Dangerfield, a pseudonym which had been used by Ricky Nelson on the TV program The Adventures of
Ozzie and Harriet. Possibly coincidentally, Jack Benny, in several episodes of his
radio show, makes reference to a fictitious comedian named 'Rodney Dangerfield' - implied as being a completely unknown/bad
actor. However, Jack Roy remained his legal name, as he mentioned from time to time.[1]
Fate intervened one Sunday night in New York, when The Ed Sullivan Show
needed a last-minute replacement for another act. This live, weekly talent show, hosted by the very influential Sullivan, could
make or break a show-business career. The middle-aged, husky Dangerfield, with his pessimistic monologue, was a contrast to the
younger, trendier comics usually seen on the Sullivan show, and this alone gave him a novelty value. His success was assured when
he told his very first "no respect" joke: "I don't get no respect. I played hide-and-seek, and they wouldn't even look for me”.
Dangerfield would also tell conventional jokes in his act: "I grew up in a tough neighborhood. Tough neighborhood! Teachers would
get notes from parents saying, 'Please excuse Johnny for the next 5 to 10 years!'" Dangerfield became the surprise hit of the
show.
Finally established as a reliable stand-up comedian, he would write thousands more of these self-depreciating jokes for the
rest of his life. Dangerfield began headlining shows in Las Vegas and made frequent
encore appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. He became a regular on
The Dean Martin Show, and appeared on The Tonight Show 70 times.
He bought a Manhattan nightclub in 1969 in order to
remain near his children after their mother died.[2]
"Dangerfield's" was the venue for an HBO show which helped popularize many stand-up comics,
including Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey,
Tim Allen, Roseanne Barr, Jeff Foxworthy, Sam Kinison, Rita
Rudner, Andrew Dice Clay, and Bob Saget.
Rodney Dangerfield's comedy album
No Respect.
His comedy album No Respect won a Grammy Award. One of his TV specials featured a
musical number, "Rappin' Rodney”, which soon became one of the first MTV music videos.
His career peaked during the early 1980s, when he became a movie star. His appearance in Caddyshack led to starring roles in Easy Money and
Back To School. In Back to School, Dangerfield's writing described the
character Lou (Burt Young) as "nice and tough" — he put one son through college and another
through a wall. (On The Tonight Show, he applied this same description to his doctor, Dr. Vinni Goombah.)
He played an abusive father in Natural Born
Killers in a scene where he wrote his own lines.
In 1994, Rodney Dangerfield won an American Comedy Award for lifetime creative
achievement. He was also recognized by the Smithsonian Institution, which put
one of his trademark white shirts and red ties on display. When asked about the honor, he joked that the museum was using his
shirt to clean Charles Lindbergh's plane.
Personal life
He was married twice to Joyce Indig — from 1949 to 1962, and again from 1963 to 1970 — with whom he had a son named Brian and
a daughter named Melanie. From 1993 to his death he was married to Joan Child, who was instrumental in setting up his Internet site.
The confusion of Dangerfield's stage persona with his real-life personality was a conception that he long resented. While
Child described him as "classy, gentlemanly, sensitive and intelligent" (yet he can make his eyes go big and small within
seconds) [3], people who met the comedian nonetheless
treated him as the belligerent loser whose character he adopted in performance. In 2004, Dangerfield's autobiography, It's Not
Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs (ISBN 0-06-621107-7) was published. The book's original
title was My Love Affair With Marijuana, a reference to the drug he smoked daily for 60 years.[4]
In 1995, his application for membership in the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences was rejected. At the time, he commented on how then-president of AMPAS, Roddy McDowall, who acted in a monkey suit in the Planet of the
Apes series of films, possibly felt that Dangerfield was not dignified enough to join the organization. AMPAS would
later offer membership, an offer he declined.
Rodney Dangerfield lived in his later years under his legal name "Jack Roy”, which he used in some of his skits, on the
Upper East Side of Manhattan, where he raised his two children. The family owned at
least one dog, which father or daughter (or both) would walk regularly. Only in Manhattan could a man like Rodney "hide in plain
sight" while strolling to the New York Health and Racquet Club in his robe on a warm summer morning. The sight of his touring bus
parked outside his apartment building (which was not a co-op or condo, but a rental) in the middle of the night was always a
sight to see as well.
Chris Rock once remarked that he was in Catch A
Rising Star one night when "Rodney showed up in his robe“. Rock said, "He must have lived down the block" — and he
wasn't far off, as it was only a block and a half. Dangerfield's was less than a mile from home, a place he could be found most
anytime he wasn't touring. Despite his stage persona, he was generally well-respected in his daily life, very private and to
himself, but polite if engaged.
Later years and death
On April 8, 2003, Dangerfield underwent brain surgery to improve blood flow in preparation for heart
valve-replacement surgery on August 24, 2004. Upon
entering the hospital, he uttered another one-liner of the type for which he was known: When asked how long he would be
hospitalized, he said, "If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour-and-a-half”.
In September 2004, it was revealed that Dangerfield, then aged 82, had been in a coma for
several weeks. Afterward, he had been breathing on his own and had been showing signs of awareness when visited by friends.
However, on October 5, 2004, he died at the UCLA Medical Center, where he had undergone the surgery in August. He was interred in the
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. In
keeping with his "No Respect" persona, his headstone reads simply, "Rodney Dangerfield - There goes the neighborhood”. [1].
Joan Child held an event in
which the word "Respect" had been emblazoned in the sky, while each guest was given a live Monarch butterfly for a Native American
butterfly-release ceremony led by Farrah Fawcett.
After his death
When Johnny Carson died on January 23,
2005, a correspondent from CNN called Dangerfield's longtime
publicist, Kevin Sasaki, and asked whether Dangerfield would be available to share comments on the air about Carson. Sasaki
replied "Unless CNN had a new way of linking up to the afterlife via satellite, that would be impossible”.[5]
Homage
Farrah Fawcett is sculpting a life-size bronze statue
of Dangerfield, which will be placed in Pierce Brothers Memorial Park. He will be the first celebrity ever to have this done.
UCLA's Division of Neurosurgery has named a suite of operating rooms after him and given him the "Rodney Respect Award" which
his wife presented to Jay Leno on October 20,
2005, on behalf of the David Geffen School of
Medicine/Division of Neurosurgery at UCLA at their 2005 Visionary Ball.
Comedy Central aired a special titled Legends: Rodney Dangerfield on
September 10, 2006, which commemorated his life and legacy.
Featured comedians included Adam Sandler, Chris Rock,
Ray Romano, Roseanne Barr, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Saget, Jerry
Stiller, Kevin Kline and Jeff Foxworthy.
Northern Irish rock band The Dangerfields are named in tribute to him.
Impressed by Dangerfield's role in Caddyshack, Europet's design manager Allen Shuemaker
brought forth the idea of creating a line of animal chew toys modeled after the comedian. The line had a short run in
1989 and, in recent years, have become highly desirable by a small group of collectors.
Part of Europet's 1989 product line was influenced by Dangerfield's distinct look
Cultural Effect
Since the 1980s, his name has been a frequently-used metaphor for someone who gets no
respect, such as "Ringo was always the Rodney Dangerfield of the Beatles".
In 2007 it was reported that a Rodney Dangerfield tattoo is among the most popular celebrity
tattoos in the United States, generally by people in their late 20s or early 30s who got the tattoo in the 1990s.[6]
References in pop culture
- The bipedal, talking shark from Hanna-Barbara's cartoon "Jabberjaw" is the combined
characters of Curly from The Three Stooges, as evident by his persona and voice; and Rodney Dangerfield, frequently using his
famous catch phrase, "I don't get no respect”.
- In November 1996, he appeared on The Simpsons episode "Burns, Baby Burns" as Mr. Burns' son Larry. The character
was modeled on Dangerfield himself, right down to his tie tug and the line, "I don't get no regard -- and no esteem,
neither”.
- He had a famous falling out with former Howard Stern Show writer
Jackie Martling over a loan Rodney made to him the in late 1970s. Jackie claimed that he
paid Rodney back in jokes and that the debt was settled.
- On The George Lopez Show episode "George is Lie-Able For Benny's
Unhappiness", George makes a comment about his friend's mother's large bra: "They're so big they still got snow on 'em in the
summer time”. George's mother overhears him and George explains by saying "What!? I heard it off a guy on TV that don't get no
respect", an obvious reference to Dangerfield's catchphrase.
- On Adam Sandler's film Little
Nicky, Dangerfield plays the first devil ever, Lucifer. When Nicky's
brother claims the throne, he throws Lucifer (who is Nicky's, Adrian's, and Cassius' grandfather) out of his way. While
Dangerfield is lying on the ground, he says "Even in Hell I don't get no respect”.
- "Rock It Like This" by Run DMC includes the lyric "I'm not Rodney Dangerfield, so give me
respect".
- In the Disney movie Aladdin, the Genie takes on the form of Rodney when delivering
the line, "I can't believe it; I'm losin' to a rug!"
- Rodney was portrayed in Celebrity Deathmatch, defeating Rob Schneider.
Selected filmography
TV work
References
External links
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