Rodney Dangerfield
Rodney Dangerfield was born on November 22, 1921 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. 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 Sweetwat.
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.’”
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. He became a regular on The Dean Martin Show, and appeared on The Tonight Show 35 times. 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.
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.”
