Word: dangerfield
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...husband, a horny, gray-haired fool, paws her constantly and, on their wedding night, cajoles her into making love on the bathroom floor. At the exact moment of his premature ejaculation, he has a heart attack and dies on top of Judy. It's like visualizing a bad Rodney Dangerfield joke and recognizing its ugly failure...
...Dangerfield, who keeps his traveling to a minimum and works as much as possible out of his own club on Manhattan's East Side, has put together one of the best comedy acts in the trade by dealing shamelessly in things other comics struggle to hide-like fear, anger and humiliation. In performance, Dangerfield is the enemy of poise. A minute after he hits the lights, his brow throws off sweat like a lawn sprinkler. His eyes bulge. His hands claw at his throat. He may be trying to loosen his tie, but it looks...
Jack Benny once told Dangerfield that his signature line-"I don't get no respect"-cuts right to everyone's soul. Indeed, Dangerfield's best comedy is based on a futile lashing out against misery, often sexual and always social. "Comedy is essentially mood, not a series of one-liners," Dangerfield says. "Every joke is a complete story." The way he tells one, the audience can often see a whole life in a setup, and a fate in a punch line. "During sex my wife wants to talk to me," he confesses, then adds: "The other night...
...Even Dangerfield's silliest gags have the sting of truth. How accurate they may be about his own life is another matter. He talks about "comedic license," but whether he is doing a shotgun discourse on marriage or about growing up Jewish and poor in a section of New York City that is well-off and Waspy, he seems to be drawing from deep roots. Rodney was Jacob Cohen when the neighborhood kids had names "like Marianne and Biff." When they were on the tennis courts, he was delivering groceries. He started writing gags when...
...also put together a new act and got a taste for a new life. Says Dangerfield: "I asked the club owner not to put my name in the paper, to make up another name. When he came up with Rodney Dangerfield I thought he was crazy, but I was depressed enough to go along with it. I figured, if you're gonna change your name you might as well change it." By 1967, he crashed the Sullivan Show, and by 1969 he had enough mileage behind him to settle down and open a club, from which he has been...