Gilda Radner

Gilda Radner is famous for creating her zany, larger-than-life characters on Saturday Night Live, and later, for her own strength of character in her fight against ovarian cancer, which she went public with in her autobiography, It's Always Something. Her Not-So-Ready-for-Prime-Time days earned her the chance to showcase her stuff on Broadway in her own one-person-show, Gilda Radner: Live From New York.



Referred to as the Sweetheart of American Comedy, her characterizations of snot-nosed geek (predecessor to Mary Catherine Gallagher of Superstar fame, most definitely) Lisa Loobner and Weekend News Update correspondent with a famous "hair don't" Roseanne Roseanna Danna remain forever quotable. These and other famous characters in her repertoire (like little old lady Emily Litella and hard rocker Candy Slice) contributed to her attaining an Emmy award in 1978 (she was also nominated in 1977) for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Variety or Musical. Behind the scenes, Radner was rumored to have had an eating disorder during the SNL years, which she later admitted publicly (also in her autobiography). She dated Martin Short for a while, but ended up marrying one of the men from The Saturday Night Live Band for a couple of years.

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