Gilda Radner

Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American comedienne and actress. She was best remembered as an original cast member of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.

Early life

Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Jewish parents, Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman. She grew up in Detroit with a nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and on whom she based her famous character Emily Litella), and an older brother named Michael. She attended the exclusive University Liggett School in Detroit (it began its relocation to Grosse Pointe later that year). Toward the end of her life, Radner wrote in her autobiography, It's Always Something, that during her childhood and young adulthood she battled numerous eating disorders: "I 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. My weight distressed my mother and she took me to a doctor who put me on Dexedrine diet pills when I was ten years old."