Rodney Dangerfield was a stand-up comedian and actor known for his "I don't get no respect" routine.
Actor and comedian Jacob Cohen was born on November 22, 1921, in Babylon, New York, the youngest of two children. His father, Phil Roy, was a comic and juggler who toured the vaudeville circuit. Roy abandoned the family shortly after Dangerfield's birth, leaving Dangerfield's mother to raise her children alone. To help the family scrape by, Rodney began selling ice cream on the beach and delivering groceries after school.
Dangerfield struggled through a difficult childhood. He was frequently the focus of torment from anti-Semitic teachers, and more affluent students. To cope, he began writing jokes and, at 17, he started performing his act at amateur nights in various clubs. By the age of 19, Dangerfield was performing his act full-time under the stage name Jack Roy, which he later made his legal name.
Dangerfield started performing stand-up comedy in his teens as "Jack Roy," but finding that comedy didn't pay the bills, he spent the 1950s working as a salesman. Re-entering show business in the early 1960s as "Rodney Dangerfield," he got a little more respect. He opened Dangerfield's comedy club in the 1970s and starred in a series of hit comedy films in the 1980s including Caddyshack. Dangerfield also expanded his reach to include Broadway shows, starring in Rodney Dangerfield on Broadway!. In addition, he released a number of comedy albums such as 1981's No Respect, for which he won a Grammy.
Dangerfield, who long suffered from heart problems, underwent a double bypass surgery in 2000. In 2003, he returned to the hospital for arterial brain surgery. Despite his declining health, Dangerfield continued performing, and published his autobiography It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs in 2004.
His career continued to rise, and the comedian showed no signs of stopping. But after a heart valve replacement surgery in August of 2004, Dangerfield suffered a small stroke and slipped into a coma. He died from surgical complications on October 5, 2004, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 82. Continue reading from Biography.com
