Song:Audition/Love To Be Unhappy
CD:Live From New York
Of course Gilda Radner was best known for her Saturday Night Live (SNL) performances in the late 70s. She was not a recording artist but her one woman show of SNL sketches was filmed and an album was released. She was born June 28, 1946 in Detroit. Her family was upper middle class and Gilda based one of her characters on her nanny. She suffered from an eating disorder as a child and a doctor put her on dexedrine when she was ten years old. Her father ran Detroit's Seville Hotel and he took Gilda to New York to see Broadway shows. Sadly he died from a brain tumor when Gilda was a teen. She left the University of Michigan after three years to move to Toronto with sculptor boyfriend Jeffrey Rubinoff. Gilda made her acting debut in the 1972 Toronto production of Godspell. And then she joined Second City along with Godspell cast members Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin and Martin Short. She also appeared on the National Lampoon Radio Hour with John Belushi and Chevy Chase. And that led to Saturday Night Live. There she created characters like Baba Wawa and Emily Litella. Gilda usually wrote her own material with staff writer Alan Zwiebel. After a successful run, she left SNL in 1979. She turned down NBC's offer of a variety show. Instead she did a one woman show Gilda Radner Live In New York on Broadway. This show was based on SNL sketches. It was turned into the movie Gilda Live by director Mike Nichols. And an album was released. Neither the film or album did well. The Audition which Gilda wrote with Paul Shaffer is from that album which is available as a budget CD. The DVD of the film is out of print. Gilda married SNL guitarist G.E. Smith in 1980 and they divorced in 1982. Then she met and married Gene Wilder on the set of the 1982 film Hanky Panky. And she made a couple of movies with him. While filming the 1985 film Haunted Honeymoon in England, Gilda got sick and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had surgery and went into remission. But the cancer returned and Gilda Radner died on May 20, 1989 at age 42. Her legacy is the many Gilda's Clubs across North America that help those living with cancer. Here's Gilda Radner performing Audition/Love To Be Unhappy from the film Gilda Live.
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