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Gilda Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989)
was an American comedian and
actress. At the height of her career and
popularity, she died at the age of only 42 of
ovarian cancer. She became an icon for public
awareness of both detection and treatment of
ovarian cancer. 

Born to a well-to-do Jewish family in Detroit,
Michigan, Radner attended the University of
Michigan as a drama major and moved to Toronto,
Canada. Her first professional stage experience
was a Toronto production of Godspell following
which she joined the Toronto The Second
City|Second City comedy troupe. 

Radner was a featured player on the National
Lampoon Radio Hour, a half-hour comedy program
syndicated to some 600 U.S. radio stations from
1973 to 1975. Fellow cast members included John
Belushi, Richard Belzer, Chevy Chase and Bill
Murray.

She first rose to widespread fame as one of the
original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" on
Saturday Night Live. (She was the first actor cast
for the show.) On that show from 1975 to 1980 she
created such characters as Roseanne Roseannadanna
(a coarse woman with long black hair that always
seemed to end up in places it didn't belong), Baba
Wawa (a spoof of journalist Barbara Walters), and
Emily Litella (an old lady who would launch into
tirades on various topics, always based on a false
premise.  When the mistake was revealed, Emily
would simply look into the camera and quietly say,
"never mind"). Radner had a knack for combining
extreme physical comedy with soft, caring
characters that were easy to love. (There is a
legend that Radner broke several ribs during one
comedy sketch that required her to slam herself
against a door repeatedly, but the next day she
went on as scheduled.) Radner also battled bulimia
during her time on the show (she once told a
reporter that she had thrown up in every toilet in
New York City), and had a relationship with
co-star Bill Murray which ended badly. In 1979
incoming NBC President Fred Silverman offered
Radner her own prime time variety show, which she
ultimately turned down.

In her final season of Saturday Night Live, Radner
appeared on Broadway in a successful one-woman
show that featured racier material, such as the
humorous song "Let's Talk Dirty to the Animals".
This show was captured on film in 1981 as Gilda
Live! and co-starred Paul Shaffer and Don Novello.
The play was also released as an album recording
-- the play was a qualified success, the film and
album were failures. 

She spent most of the next decade keeping a
surprisingly low profile, aside from appearances
in such films as Hanky Panky, The Lady in Red, and
Haunted Honeymoon. In the late 1980s, she was
diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Even with the
support of her second husband, actor Gene Wilder,
(she had previously been married to Saturday Night
Live band leader G.E. Smith) she suffered extreme
physical and emotional pain as a chemotherapy
patient. Eventually she was told she had gone into
remission, and she wrote a memoir about her life
and struggle with the illness, called It's Always
Something. The  book was written by Radner in
tribute to cancer sufferers everywhere, and she
used humor to overcome tragedy and pain. The
book's title came from a common catch-phrase from
her Saturday Night Live character Roseanne
Rosannadanna, who would often quote an elderly
relative by saying "It just goes to show ya...it's
always something! If it's not one thing, it's
another!"

In 1988 she guest-starred as herself on It's Garry
Shandling's Show to great critical acclaim. She
planned to host an episode of SNL that year but a
writers' strike caused the cancellation of the
rest of the season. She wanted to host the next
year, but in 1989 doctors did a more detailed
examination and discovered that Radner's cancerous
cells had not all been removed and had spread to
other areas of the body. She died in Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, in
1989, where she had been admitted for a CAT scan. 
She was given a sedative and passed into a coma. 
After three days, she died without regaining
consciousness, with Wilder at her side.  

Wilder has since established the Gilda Radner
Ovarian Detection Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center|Cedars-Sinai to screen high-risk candidates
and run basic diagnostic tests. He testified
before a Congressional committee that her
condition was misdiagnosed and that if doctors had
inquired more deeply into her family background
they would have found numerous cases of ovarian
cancer and might have attacked the disease
earlier.   

Wilder has continued his involvement in both
detection and treatment of ovarian cancer. In
tribute to Radner, Gilda's Club was founded. It is
a place where cancer patients and their families
can go to be around other people in the same
situation to share support, coping and wellness
strategies.  It grew to multiple locations across
the country.

In 1992, Radner was inducted into the Michigan
Women's Hall of Fame for her achievements in arts
and entertainment.

In 2002 the American Broadcasting Company|ABC
television network aired a TV-movie about her
life, starring Jami Gertz.