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Gilda Radner: Saturday Night Live
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An early star of Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner died at the young age of 42 after a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. Radner, born to Jewish-American parents, grew up in Detroit and briefly attended the University of Michigan before leaving for Canada and comedy fame. Gilda Radner worked in Toronto in a number of comedy troupes and in small productions until 1975, when she started her four-year reign on Saturday Night Live. Radner was one of the original members, along with other comedic greats, and she was one of the stars who helped to make the show an on-going success.
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A million years ago on Saturday Night Live from New York, Gilda Radner would come on during the Chevy Chase news segment and rant on and on about something over which she was totally confused. well then, never mind.'
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Gilda Radner was selected by producer Lorne Michaels to join the cast of a new late-night comedy program called Saturday Night Live in 1975. She stayed on the show for five years, creating such legendary characters as Roseanne Rosannadanna, the annoying newswoman, and Baba Wawa, a parody of Barbara Walters. She performed with many emerging comic stars, including John Belushi and Bill Murray.
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Radner was one of the great comic geniuses of the 20th century, ranked up with Lucille Ball and other comedy legends of the highest caliber. She was born on June 28, 1946, in Detroit, the younger of two children. Her parents were Herman and Henrietta Radner, and she had an older brother named Michael. She grew up with a nanny she always called Dibby, on whom she based her famous "Saturday Night Live" (1975) character, hard-of-hearing news correspondent Emily Litella. She was very close to her father, not as close to her mother, and tragically, her father died when she was 12, leaving her heartbroken. She was very overweight as a child, and because of this, she suffered from anorexia and bulimia and became very thin.
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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Radner attended the University of Michigan as a drama major and moved to Toronto, Canada. Her first professional stage experience was a Toronto production of Godspell following which she joined the Toronto Second City comedy troupe. She first rose to widespread fame as one of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players on Saturday Night Live. (She was the first actor cast for the show.) On that show from 1975 to 1980 she created such characters as Roseanne Rosannadanna (a coarse woman with long black hair that always seemed to end up in places it didn't belong), Baba Wawa (a spoof of journalist Barbara Walters), and Emily Litella (an old lady who would launch into tirades on various topics, always based on a false premise. When the mistake was revealed, Emily would simply look into the camera and quietly say, never mind). Radner had a knack for combining extreme physical comedy with soft, caring characters that were easy to love.
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In 1975, Radner became a part of the original cast of the NBC comedy series Saturday Night Live. The first episode premiered on October 18, 1975. She created such memorable characters as Roseanne Roseannadanna, “Babwa Wawa”, and Emily Litella. Radner ... battled bulimia during her time on the show. In 1978, she won an Emmy for her work. Radner remained with the cast of Saturday Night Live until 1980.
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