Gilda Radner

Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American actress and comedian.

Radner was one of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from its inception in 1975 until her departure in 1980. In her sketches on SNL, she played various original characters on the show's Weekend Update segment, such as the elderly, hard-of-hearing Emily Litella and the advice specialist Roseanne Roseannadanna, who rarely offered advice but often provided disgusting, off-topic stories. Radner won an Emmy Award for her performances on the show in 1978. She also portrayed those characters, among others, in her one-woman show Gilda, Live on Broadway in 1979 and later on film in 1980.

After leaving Saturday Night Live, Radner appeared in various films, including three with her future husband Gene Wilder, with whom she first appeared in 1982's Hanky Panky. She also worked on stage, appearing in the Broadway play Lunch Hour with Sam Waterston in 1980. She also continued to work on network and cable television, making appearances on Lorne Michaels' The New Show and It's Garry Shandling's Show.

After nearly a year of misdiagnoses, Radner was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986 and died from the disease in 1989. Shortly before her death, she published her autobiography, It's Always Something, which dealt frankly with her life, work, and personal struggles, including her struggles with the illness. Her widower, Gene Wilder, carried out her wish that information about her illness would be used to help other people living with cancer, founding—and inspiring the founding of—organizations that emphasize early diagnosis, attention to hereditary factors, and support for cancer patients.

Posthumously, Radner won a Grammy Award in 1990, was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 1992, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003. Other comedians have cited Radner as an influence on their work.

Early life

Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Jewish parents Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In Radner's autobiography, she stated, "I was named after my grandmother whose name began with G, but 'Gilda' came directly from the movie with Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth."<ref>Template:Cite book
Note:
Radner's mother's mother's name was Golda. The 1946 Rita Hayworth movie Gilda was released a few months before Radner was born.</ref> Through her mother, Radner was a second cousin of business executive Steve Ballmer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She grew up in Detroit and spent the winters in Miami Beach, Florida,<ref name=":8">Template:Cite book</ref> along with an older brother, Michael, and the family's nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and upon whom she based her famous character Emily Litella).<ref name="CBC90">Template:Cite web</ref>

Radner was close to her father, who operated Detroit's Seville Hotel, where many nightclub performers and actors stayed while they were performing in the city.<ref name="saltman">Template:Cite book</ref> He took her on trips to New York to see Broadway shows.<ref name="obit" /> When Radner was 12, her father developed a brain tumor. Within days, he was bedridden, and he was unable to communicate. He remained in that condition until he died two years later.<ref name="Radner, Gilda 1989, p. 99">Template:Cite book</ref> Radner's father was known to say "It's always something," the quote that would become associated with Radner's SNL character Roseanne Roseannadanna and the title of her autobiography.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":9" />

Radner traced her sense of humor to her family growing up. She said her father "was real funny ... he loved to sing ... and tap dance. I feel that some part of my father is back alive in me, back doing what he always wanted to do."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She said her mother "[wasn't] consciously funny, but almost the only thing that gets through to her is to make her laugh. She has an infectious response to humor so it was a way of getting to her when nothing else worked."<ref name=":8" /> Radner also said her nanny "Dibby" helped her develop her sense of humor, teaching her to laugh at herself before other kids could.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As a child, Radner developed eating disorders, and would eat large amounts of food before going on diets. She wrote in her autobiography that she "coped with stress by having every possible eating disorder from the time I was nine years old. I have weighed as much as 160 pounds and as little as 93. When I was a kid, I overate constantly."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Radner attended the University Liggett School in Grosse Pointe Woods from 1957 to 1964.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1964, Radner graduated from Liggett and enrolled at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.<ref name="JenniferDavis">Template:Cite news</ref> Sources vary on what she majored in; Radner said in her autobiography she majored in public speaking,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> while other sources said she majored in drama<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> or education.<ref name="MHOF">Template:Cite web</ref> While in college, Radner did weather reports at WCBN, the university's radio station.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> According to her friend David Saltman in his book Gilda: An Intimate Portrait, she would report on the weather in humorous ways, such as imitating a radio static.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She also took part in theater productions both on and off campus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

Moving to Toronto and The Second City

In 1969, Radner dropped out of university to follow her boyfriend, Canadian sculptor Jeffrey Rubinoff, to Toronto.<ref name="something">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Radner was quoted in 1973 as saying that Toronto was "the answer to my dreams. It's a young city, open to new ideas and there are incredible opportunities for creative people."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Initially, she intended to be a stay at home wife to Rubinoff, but Radner grew depressed, as she felt she wasn't able to perform like she wanted to, and was reduced to little more than helping prepare Rubinoff's art shows.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref> Her friend David Saltman recalled that she would call him, complaining that she and Rubinoff would fight all the time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Eventually Radner left Rubinoff but remained in Toronto.<ref name=":7">Template:Cite book</ref> During this time, she took classes at the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin's correspondence school to complete her degree.<ref name=":6" />

Shortly after her break-up, Radner went to see a show at a theatre and decided to pursue acting. She worked at the theatre doing children's plays and also did pantomime performances at elementary schools across Toronto.<ref name=":7" /> Radner made her professional acting debut in the 1972 production of Godspell, with future stars Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber, Martin Short, and Paul Shaffer.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1973, Radner joined The Second City comedy troupe in Toronto and appeared in various productions there alongside comedians such as Dan Aykroyd, John Candy, Joe Flaherty and Catherine O'Hara.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She had one line of dialogue as a Buddhist group member in the 1973 film The Last Detail, starring Jack Nicholson and also appeared on various children's shows on CBC.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Radner would also appear in The National Lampoon Radio Hour and the off-Broadway production of The National Lampoon Show.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Saturday Night Live

Radner, as Emily Litella, with Raquel Welch

Radner, as Emily Litella, with Raquel Welch in 1976

Radner gained wide recognition in 1975 as one of the original "Not Ready for Prime Time Players," the freshman cast of the first season of Saturday Night Live. She was the first performer to be cast in the show,<ref name="obit"/> choosing the show over doing The David Steinberg Show in Canada.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref>

Radner co-wrote much of the material that she performed and collaborated with writer Alan Zweibel on the development of sketches that featured her recurring characters.<ref name="zweibel">Template:Cite book</ref> Some of Radner's characters included:

• Emily Litella, an elderly, hard-of-hearing editorialist who made irate, misinformed comments in interview sketches on SNL's recurring Weekend Update segment.<ref name="obit" /> She would often rant about a topic (often mishearing the initial topic, such as hearing violence on television as "violins on television") before being corrected, to which she would then say, "Never mind."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Litella would later appear on Gilda Radner's episode of The Muppets Show.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Judy Miller, a hyper eight-year old girl with an overactive imagination. Sketches would consist of her bouncing off the walls of her bedroom, reenacting soap operas, and hosting a make-believe television program called "The Judy Miller Show." Radner based the character on her own childhood.
• Roseanne Roseannadanna, originally a character in a separate sketch, Roseannadanna became a regular on Weekend Update, usually receiving a question from a Richard Feder in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and subsequently answering Feder's questions with long, off-topic, and frequently disgusting answers. Jane Curtin would cut her off; she would end by saying, "It's always something."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The character was based off of Rose Ann Scamardella, a New York City reporter for WABC.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Baba Wawa, a parody of Barbara Walters who spoke with a speech impediment that changed L's and R's to W's.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In a 1978 interview with CBC, Radner said she listened to Walters and noticed that they both spoke with a sibilant, and that if she changed the L's and R's, she could imitate her.<ref name="CBC90" /> After Radner's death, Walters noted in an interview that Radner had been the "first person to make fun of news anchors, now it's done all the time."<ref>Template:YouTube</ref>

Additionally Radner parodied various celebrities such as Lucille Ball, Patti Smith, and Olga Korbut.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Radner was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Continuing Or Single Performance By A Supporting Actress In Variety Or Music" in 1977, and won in 1978.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1979, the new president and CEO of NBC, Fred Silverman, offered Radner a primetime variety show on the network, but she turned down the offer, not wanting to add another five years to her contract and not wanting to leave SNL.<ref name="something" /><ref name=":2" /> On January 9, 1979, she was a co-host of the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Radner also gave the commencement address, in character as Roseanne Roseannadanna, to the 1979 graduating class at the Columbia School of Journalism.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Radner reportedly expressed mixed emotions about being recognized and approached in public by fans and other strangers. SNL historians Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad said she became "angry when she was approached, and upset when she wasn't".<ref name="history">Hill, Doug and Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. New York: Beech Tree Books. 1986.</ref>

Broadway show

In 1979, Radner appeared on Broadway in a successful one-woman show, Gilda Radner – Live from New York.<ref name="ibdb">Template:IBDB name</ref> Produced by Lorne Michaels, the show featured material that was racier than NBC censors would allow on Saturday Night Live, such as the song "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals." The same year, shortly before Radner's final season on Saturday Night Live, her Broadway show was filmed by director Mike Nichols and released with the title Gilda Live. It co-starred Paul Shaffer and Don Novello, and screened in theaters nationwide in 1980, but was a box-office flop. A soundtrack album was also commercially unsuccessful.

Post Saturday Night Live career

Roles in films

In 1980, Radner's contract with SNL expired<ref name=":5">Template:Cite news</ref> and she left the show, along with Lorne Michaels and the rest of the cast.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After leaving, Radner pursued new acting opportunities.<ref name=":5" />

Radner's first film after leaving the show was 1980's First Family, with Bob Newhart and Madeline Kahn, in which Radner played the sexually frustrated daughter of the President of the United States.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref> The film was unsuccessful.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1982, she appeared in the Sidney Poitier directed film Hanky Panky, alongside her future husband Gene Wilder. Subsequently, she would appear in two more films with Wilder, 1984's The Woman in Red, and 1986's Haunted Honeymoon. The three films were not particularly successful, though The Woman in Red performed adequately at the box office, and had the Academy Award winning song "I Just Called to Say I Love You" by Stevie Wonder.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In her autobiography, Radner described Hanky Panky as "not-too-successful,"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The Woman in Red as "a nice enough success,"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Haunted Honeymoon as "a bomb....a box-office disaster."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Radner's SNL castmate Laraine Newman said in a 2018 interview that she believed Radner's movie career had turned out to be mostly disappointing.<ref name="jweekly1">Template:Cite news</ref> According to Newman, this was because Hollywood directors and producers did not know how to cast Radner in roles where her comedic talents could best shine. "The specific nature of her talent was she did characters, and she would probably have been better served if she had taken part in writing the things that she did," Newman asserted. "But I don't think it occurred to her. If she and Alan Zweibel had collaborated on a feature, it might have been a whole different thing."<ref name="jweekly1" />

Other work

Outside of film, Radner continued to work in different mediums. In 1980, she began appearing with Sam Waterston in the Jean Kerr play Lunch Hour. They played two people whose spouses are having an affair, and who, in retaliation, begin an affair of their own consisting of lunch-hour trysts.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The show ran for more than seven months, playing in various US theaters, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":10">Template:Cite news</ref> The Washington Post's Judith Martin and UPI's Glenne Curie praised Radner's performance as a highlight of the show, while New York Daily News' Douglas Watt and The Boston Globe's Kevin Kelly were more critical of her performance.<ref name=":10" /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1983, Radner, along with Alan Zweibel, wrote Roseanne Roseannadanna's "Hey Get Back to Work!" Book.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> She continued to work on television, as well. In 1984, Radner appeared on an episode of Lorne Michaels' The New Show, a sketch comedy show featuring Valri Bromfield, John Candy, and Dave Thomas among others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal life

File:Gene Wilder - Gilda Radner.jpg

Radner with Gene Wilder in 1986

After breaking up with Jeffrey Rubinoff, Radner had an on-again-off-again relationship with Martin Short while both were appearing in Godspell. Radner had romantic involvements with several Saturday Night Live castmates, including Bill Murray (after a previous romance with his brother Brian Doyle-Murray) and Dan Aykroyd. Radner's friend Judy Levy recounted Radner saying she found Ghostbusters hard to watch since the cast included so many of her ex-boyfriends: Aykroyd, Murray, and Harold Ramis.<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> Radner was married to musician G. E. Smith from 1980 to 1982; they met while working on her Broadway show.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The two lived in The Dakota building in Manhattan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the shooting of John Lennon in 1980 and the death of John Belushi in 1982, Radner moved to Stamford, Connecticut.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Radner met actor Gene Wilder on the set of Hanky Panky, when the two worked together on the production of the film. She described their first meeting as "love at first sight".<ref name="something"/> After she met Wilder, her marriage to Smith deteriorated. Radner made a second film with Wilder, The Woman in Red (released in 1984), and their relationship deepened. The two were married on September 18, 1984, in Saint-Tropez.<ref name="something"/> They made a third film together, Haunted Honeymoon, in 1986<ref name="something"/> and remained married until her death in 1989. She discovered that she was pregnant during the filming of Haunted Honeymoon, but miscarried early in the pregnancy.

Details of Radner's eating disorder were reported in a book about Saturday Night Live by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad,<ref name="history" /> which was published and received much media coverage during a period when Radner was consulting various doctors in Los Angeles about symptoms of an illness she was suffering that turned out to be cancer.

Illness

In 1985, while she was on the set of Haunted Honeymoon in the United Kingdom, Radner began to feel severe fatigue, and she also began to feel severe pain in her upper legs. She sought medical treatment, and for a period of 10 months, various doctors, most of them in Los Angeles, gave her several diagnoses, but all of them turned out to be wrong; meanwhile, she continued to feel pain.<ref name="something" />

During those 10 months, she also faced hardships such as the publication of Hill and Weingrad's highly publicized book about Saturday Night Live, which contained many details about her eating disorder<ref name="history" /><ref name="something" /> as well as the financial failure of Haunted Honeymoon, which had only grossed $8,000,000 in the United States, entering the box-office-returns ranking at number 8, then slipping to 14 the following week.

Finally, on October 21, 1986, Radner was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer.<ref name="something" /><ref name="cr">Template:Cite web</ref> She immediately underwent surgery and had a hysterectomy.<ref name="cr" /> On October 26, surgeons removed a grapefruit-size tumor from her abdomen. Radner then began chemotherapy and radiation therapy treatment, as she wrote in It's Always Something, and the treatment caused extreme physical and emotional pain.<ref name="something" />

After her diagnosis, the National Enquirer ran the headline "Gilda Radner In Life-Death Struggle" in its following issue. Without asking for her comment,<ref name="something" /> the editors of the publication asserted that she was dying. Radner wrote in It's Always Something: Template:Blockquote

Radner saw her Saturday Night Live castmates for the last time at Laraine Newman's 36th birthday party in March 1988.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Remission

After Radner was told that she had gone into remission, she wrote the book It's Always Something (a catchphrase of her character Roseanne Roseannadanna),<ref name="something" /> which included details of her struggle with the illness. Life did a March 1988 cover story on her illness, titled "Gilda Radner's Answer to Cancer: Healing the Body with Mind and Heart."

Wanting to return to television, Radner guest-starred on It's Garry Shandling's Show on March 18, 1988, unannounced, mentioning on-camera that a cancer diagnosis and treatment explained the long hiatus in her entertainment career. According to Alan Zweibel, Radner had been nervous about appearing on the show, worrying that she had been out of the spotlight so long that no one would remember her. When she appeared on camera, she received a loud round of applause. It would be her final TV appearance.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref> After the appearance, HBO president Michael Fuchs discussed the possibility of giving Radner a new show created by Zweibel and Shandling.<ref name=":4" />

Radner was scheduled to host an episode of Saturday Night Live in the spring of 1988, which would have made her the first female former cast member to host the show, but the writers' strike forced production to shut down before the end of the season.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Recurrence, death, and SNL response

In September 1988, after tests showed no signs of cancer, Radner went on a maintenance chemotherapy treatment to prolong her remission, but three months later, in December, she learned that the cancer had returned.<ref name="cr" />

On May 17, 1989, she was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to undergo a CT scan. She was given a sedative and lapsed into a coma during the scan.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> She did not regain consciousness and died three days later, on May 20, 1989; Wilder was at her side. The cause of death was ovarian cancer.<ref name="obit">Template:Cite news</ref>

News of Radner's death broke as Steve Martin was rehearsing for his guest-host role on that night's season finale of Saturday Night Live. The show's performers and crew, including Lorne Michaels, Phil Hartman, and Mike Myers (who said he had "fallen in love" with Radner after playing her son in a BC Hydro commercial on Canadian television and considered her the reason he wanted to be on SNL),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> had been unaware of the severity of Radner's condition.

Martin abandoned his opening monologue, and he tearfully introduced a video clip of a 1978 sketch in which he and Radner had parodied Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the dance routine "Dancing in the Dark" from The Band Wagon (1953).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After the clip, Martin said it reminded him of "how great she was, and of how young I looked. Gilda, we miss you."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> G. E. Smith, Radner's first husband, who was Saturday Night Live's bandleader, wore a black armband throughout the episode.

Radner is interred at Long Ridge Union Cemetery in Stamford, Connecticut.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Legacy

File:Cedars-Sinai West.jpg

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center hosts the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center.

Legacy in comedy

In her 2012 book, We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, Yael Kohen wrote, "Of the three female [SNL] cast members, Gilda Radner made the deepest impact. There is hardly a female sketch comic today who does not claim Radner as an inspiration for her comedy career."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In Rolling StoneTemplate:'s February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to date, Radner was ranked ninth in importance. "[Radner was] the most beloved of the original cast," they wrote. "In the years between Mary Tyler Moore and Seinfeld's Elaine, Radner was the prototype for the brainy city girl with a bundle of neuroses."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Writers and comedians who have cited Radner as an influence include Lena Dunham, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph. At the premiere for the documentary film Love, Gilda, Tina Fey said, "She was our equivalent to Michelle Obama. She was so lovely and she was so authentically herself and so regular in so many ways … We all saw that and said: 'I wanna do that.'"<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Legacy in cancer awareness and treatment

Radner's death helped raise awareness of the early detection of ovarian cancer and the connection to familial epidemiology.<ref>Squires, Sally. "Fighting Ovarian Cancer: Doctors Don't Know Who Is At Risk and Why", The Washington Post, May 30, 1989.</ref> The media attention in the two years after Radner's death led to the registry of 450 families with familial ovarian cancer at the Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry, a research database registry at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. The registry was renamed the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry (GRFOCR) in 1990 and renamed the Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry in 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1996, Wilder and Registry founder Steven Piver, one of Radner's medical consultants, published Gilda's Disease: Sharing Personal Experiences and a Medical Perspective on Ovarian Cancer.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Wilder established the Gilda Radner Hereditary Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai to screen high-risk candidates (such as women of Ashkenazi Jewish descent) and to run basic diagnostic tests. He testified before a Congressional committee that Radner's condition had been misdiagnosed and that if doctors had inquired more deeply into her family background, they would have learned that her grandmother, aunt, and a cousin had all died of ovarian cancer, and therefore they might have attacked the disease earlier.<ref>Wilder, Gene. "Why Did Gilda Die?" People magazine, June 3, 1991.</ref>

Picture of Gilda's Club location in New York City

Gilda's Club location in New York City

In 1991, Gilda's Club, a network of affiliated clubhouses where people living with cancer, their friends, and families, can meet to learn how to live with cancer, was founded by Joanna Bull, Radner's cancer psychotherapist, along with Radner's widower, Gene Wilder (also a cancer survivor) and broadcaster Joel Siegel (who would die in 2007 following a long battle with colon cancer). The first club opened in New York City in 1995. The organization took its name from Radner's comment that cancer gave her "membership to an elite club I'd rather not belong to".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Many Gilda's Clubs have opened across the United States and in Canada. In July 2009, Gilda's Club Worldwide merged with The Wellness Community, another established cancer support organization, to become the Cancer Support Community (CSC).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As of 2012, more than 20 local affiliates of Gilda's Club were active. Although some local affiliates of Gilda's Club and The Wellness Community have retained their names, many affiliates have adopted the name Cancer Support Community following the merger.<ref name=":0" />

Other tributes

On September 26, 1992, much of the original cast of Godspell reunited for a one-night performance of the show as a tribute to Radner and to raise money for the Genesis Research Foundation, which specialized in ovarian cancer research.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1997, Bunny, Bunny: Gilda Radner: A Sort of Romantic Comedy, Alan Zweibel's play about his friendship with Radner (based on his memoir with the same name) ran for 73 performances at New York's off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre. Paula Cale played Gilda, Bruno Kirby played Zwiebel, and all the other roles (more than twenty) were played by Alan Tudyk in his New York stage debut (a feat for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award).<ref name="avclub">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2002, ABC dedicated a three-hour block of programming to Radner. The evening kicked off with a one-hour special, Gilda Radner's Greatest Moments. Hosted by Saturday Night Live alumnus Molly Shannon, the special featured highlights from her career and appearances by stars and friends including Victor Garber, Eugene Levy, Steve Martin, Paul Shaffer, Lily Tomlin, and Barbara Walters. It was followed by a television movie about her life: Gilda Radner: It's Always Something, starring Jami Gertz as Radner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2007, Radner was featured in Making Trouble, a film tribute to female Jewish comedians produced by the Jewish Women's Archive.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2015, for the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special, Radner was honored with other deceased cast and crew members over the show's history.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Additionally, during the Weekend Update segment, Emma Stone played Roseanne Roseannadanna as a tribute to Radner.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Ella Hunt portrays Radner in the 2024 film Saturday Night.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2025, for SNL's 50th anniversary, her co-stars Newman and Jane Curtin held up a photograph of her during the "farewell" segment of the show.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Jordan Kai Burnett portrayed Radner in 2024 and 2025 productions of Gene & Gilda, a play by Cary Gitter about Radner's years with Gene Wilder.<ref>59E59 Theaters; The Arthur Laurents Theater </ref><ref>Isherwood, Charles. Review in The Wall Streeet Journal, July 31, 2025.</ref>

Awards and honors

Radner was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music" three times between 1977 and 1979 for her work on Saturday Night Live, winning in 1978.<ref name=":3" /> She posthumously won a Grammy Award for "Best Spoken Word Or Non-Musical Recording" in 1990.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1992, Radner was posthumously inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her achievements in arts and entertainment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

File:GildaRadner-walkoffame.jpg

Radner's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Producer/actor James Tumminia spearheaded a campaign to dedicate a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to Radner.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On June 27, 2003, Radner received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Saturday Night Live alumna Molly Shannon (and the host of the ABC special) served as Master of Ceremonies at the induction ceremony at which Laraine Newman, Gilda's Club founder Joanna Bull, and Radner's brother, Michael F. Radner, presented the honor.

Parts of West Houston Street in New York City, Lombard Street in Toronto, and Chester Avenue in White Plains, New York, have been renamed "Gilda Radner Way". The private road off Kirk Road in Warminster Township, Pennsylvania, leading to the Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia (formerly Gilda's Club Delaware Valley) is also thusly named.

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1973	The Last Detail	Nichiren Shōshū Member
1979	Mr. Mike's Mondo Video	Herself
1980	Gilda Live	Herself / Various Characters	Also writer
1980	First Family	Gloria Link
1982	Hanky Panky	Kate Hellman
1982	It Came from Hollywood	Herself
1984	The Woman in Red	Ms. Milner
1985	Movers & Shakers	Livia Machado
1986	Haunted Honeymoon	Vickie Pearle
2018	Love, Gilda	Herself	Documentary (archive footage)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974	Jack: A Flash Fantasy	Jill of Hearts
1974	The Gift of Winter	Nicely / Malicious / Narrator	Voice
1974–1975	Dr. Zonk and the Zunkins	—	Voice
1975–1980	Saturday Night Live	Various characters	107 episodes; also writer
1978	The Muppet Show	Herself	1 episode
1978	Witch's Night Out	Witch	Voice
1978	All You Need Is Cash	Mrs. Emily Pules	Television film, cameo
1979	Bob & Ray, Jane, Laraine & Gilda	Herself
1980	Animalympics	Barbara Warbler / Brenda Springer / Coralee Perrier / Tatiana Tushenko / Doree Turnell / The Contessa	Television film, Voice
1985	Reading Rainbow	Herself	Voice only; 1 episode
1988	It's Garry Shandling's Show	Herself	1 episode, final appearance

Awards

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result
1977	Emmy Award	Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music	Saturday Night Live	Template:Nominated
1978	Emmy Award	Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety or Music	Saturday Night Live	Template:Won
1988	Emmy Award	Outstanding Guest Performer In A Comedy Series	It's Garry Shandling's Show	Template:Nominated
1990	Grammy Award	Best Spoken Word or Non-musical Recording	It's Always Something	Template:Won
1992	Michigan Women's Hall of Fame	Entertainer		Template:Won
2003	Hollywood Walk of Fame	Television		Template:Won

See also

• Friends of Gilda
• Gilda's Club

External links

• Cancer Support Community (formerly Gilda's Club)
• Gilda Radner Hereditary Cancer Program
• Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry
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• Jewish Women in Comedy – Gilda Radner