"It's Not Easy Being' Me": The life of the king of self-deprecation
Who says Rodney Dangerfield gets no respect?
"Rodney is, without a doubt, as funny as a carbon-based life form can be," writes Jim Carrey in his foreword to Dangerfield's memoir, "It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs."
The twitchy, bug-eyed comic whose catch phrase "I get no respect" has helped him earn the respect of colleagues and brought pleasure to fans, describes how, at middle age, he became a show-business star. But at the beginning of the story of his 80-plus years is a lonely childhood, and toward the end are several surgeries and ongoing health problems.
Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen in 1921 and lived in the borough of Queens in New York. He had show business in his veins. His father was the Roy half of vaudeville's Roy and Arthur and was on the road even when he was home. When his father wasn't touring, he stayed in Manhattan, where young Jacob would go twice a year for a perfunctory visit with his father.
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Dangerfield's show business career had two phases. During the first phase, he was Jackie Roy. He quit at 28. He married and went into the aluminum-siding business.
But 12 years in aluminum couldn't tarnish the luster of performing, so Jackie Roy — reborn as Rodney Dangerfield, a name a club-owner created for him — went back doing stand-up while keeping his day job.
"I get no respect" became his "shtick." In the mid-1960s came the first of many appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and Dangerfield had arrived.
Dangerfield appeared often also on "The Dean Martin Show" — 28 times, to be exact — but met Martin only once. For seven consecutive Sundays, he writes, "I flew from New York to California, went into an empty studio, sat down at that table by myself and did four skits while talking to an empty chair. Later, the crew filled in shots of the audience laughing, and they filled in Dean Martin, too."
Dangerfield is frank when he discusses his drinking problem and his cocaine use, which "makes you do stupid things," including the time he snorted foot powder that he had mistaken for coke.
Scattered throughout are plenty of Dangerfield's one-liners ("When I was a kid, my yo-yo, it never came back").
There are also dozens of photos of Dangerfield throughout the years, and images of people who touched his life, including Elvis Presley, Robin Williams, President Clinton and aluminum-siding colleague Joe Ancis, Dangerfield's best friend and "the funniest guy I ever knew."