Rodney Dangerfield (November 22, 1921 – October 5, 2004), born
Jacob Cohen, was an
American comedian and
actor, best known for the
catchphrases
"I don't get no respect" or
"I get no respect" and his
monologues on that theme.
Early life and career
Dangerfield was born on
Long Island in the town of
Babylon, the son of Jewish parents. His father was the
vaudevillian performer Phil Roy (Philip Cohen). His ancestors came to the United States from
Hungary.
[books.google.com/books?id=9ihusHzginAC&pg=PA3&dq=%22rodney+dangerfield%22+hungary] 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), and also working as a performing
acrobatic diver 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, which had been used as the comical name of a faux cowboy star by
Jack Benny on his radio program at least as early as the December 12, 1941, broadcast and later as a
pseudonym by
Ricky Nelson on the TV program
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. However, Jack Roy remained his legal name, as he mentioned from time to time.
During a question and answer session with the audience on the album
No Respect, Rodney joked that his real name was Percival Sweetwater.
Fate intervened one Sunday night in New York, when
The Ed Sullivan Show needed a last-minute replacement for another act. This extremely popular, live, weekly 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 novelty value.
His success was assured when he told his very first "no respect" joke: "I 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. Some of Dangerfield's material was
unabashedly silly, but with his stop-watch delivery, it hardly mattered. "I used to date a girl from Buffalo," he'd announce. "Why can't I meet a girl with normal parents?" He would inform his audience, "I asked my wife 'is there somebody else?' She said, 'there MUST be.'"
Invariably the butt of his own jokes, the disrespect began with his parents almost at birth, continued through schoolyard taunting by classmates, followed by failure in the dating scene, right up to his insulting wife. Audiences didn't necessarily believe his material, but they laughed heartily at it.
Finally established as a reliable stand-up comedian, he would write thousands more of these
self-deprecating jokes. Dangerfield began headlining shows in
Las Vegas and made frequent encore appearances on
The Ed Sullivan Show.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0040053/fullcredits#cast:imdb cast list for Ed Sullivan Show] He became a regular on
The Dean Martin Show, and appeared on
The Tonight Show 35 times.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0055708/fullcredits#cast:imdb episode guide for Tonight Show]
He bought a
Manhattan nightclub in 1969 in order to remain near his children, whose mother was too ill to take care of them.
"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.
His comedy album,
No Respect, won a
Grammy Award.
[www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/Winners/Results.aspx:grammy award winners search from grammy.com] 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 began acting in comedy movies. 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. Vinny Boombotz.)
In a change of pace from the comedy persona that made him famous, he played an
abusive father in
Natural Born Killers, in a scene for which he had written his own lines.
Dangerfield appeared in a
Simpsons episode titled
Burns, Baby Burns, where he played a character who is essentially a parody of his own persona,
Mr. Burns' son
Larry Burns.
Dangerfield also appeared in the 2000
Adam Sandler vehicle
Little Nicky, playing
Lucifer, the father of
Satan (
Harvey Keitel) and grandfather of Nicky (Sandler).
He was 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 to Joyce Indig with whom he had a son, Brian, and a daughter, Melanie. From 1993 to his death he was married to Joan Child, who was instrumental in setting up
his Internet site. He was also very good friends with comic
Sam Kinison.
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,"
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 his smoking material of choice for 60 years.
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 characteristic one-liner when asked how long he would be hospitalized: "If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour-and-a-half.”
In September 2004, it was revealed that Dangerfield had been in a
coma for several weeks. Afterward, he began breathing on his own and showing signs of awareness when visited by friends. However, on October 5, 2004, he died at the
UCLA Medical Center, from complications of the surgery he had undergone in August. He was a month and a half short of his 83rd birthday. Dangerfield 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.”
[www.seeing-stars.com/ImagePages/RodneyDangerfieldGravePhoto.shtml]
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.
[www.rodney.com/rodney/about/about.asp]
Homages
UCLA's Division of
Neurosurgery named a suite of operating rooms after him, and gave him the "Rodney Respect Award" which his wife presented to
Jay Leno on October 20, 2005. It was presented on behalf of the
David Geffen School of Medicine/Division of Neurosurgery at UCLA at their 2005 Visionary Ball.
[www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/7483:University of California website]
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,
Jay Leno,
Ray Romano,
Roseanne Barr,
Jerry Seinfeld,
Bob Saget,
Jerry Stiller,
Kevin Kline and
Jeff Foxworthy.
[www.imdb.com/title/tt0865327/:imdb reference to Legends, Rodney Dangerfield]
The 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.
The ending credits of
The George Lopez Show feature an homage to Rodney Dangerfield.
In 2007, it was reported that a Rodney Dangerfield tattoo is among the most popular celebrity tattoos in the United States.
On
Triple M's now defunct radio program 'Get This', co-anchor
Ed Kavalee used to champion the digital addition of Rodney Dangerfield to movies in an attempt to make them more interesting. Callers would often make their own suggestions regarding this.
In the final taping of "the Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on May 29, 2009, Leno credited Dangerfield with the style of joke Leno had been using for the past few years. The format of the joke is that the comedian tells a sidekick how bad something is—in the case of "Tonight," guitar player Kevin Eubanks—and the sidekick sets up the joke by asking just how bad that something is.
Filmography
TV work
