COMIC LEGEND RODNEY DANGERFIELD DIES
Well, it we had a feeling this was coming sooner or later. He fought the good fight and gave almost every major comedian of today, their break or catapulted their careers in some fashion. Forgive the cheesiness of this next line but, all in all, he did have a lot of respect. There will never be another like him. God speed Rodney.
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FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Rodney Dangerfield (search), 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 Aug. 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. In the past week he had emerged from the coma, Sasaki said.
Clad in a black suit, red tie and white shirt with collar that seemed too tight, Dangerfield 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.'"
