Gilda Radner, the first cast member Lorne Michaels signed to “Saturday Night Live,” was beloved for her five years on that groundbreaking series. But the magic she created on television didn’t carry over to her film career.
Some might be perplexed as to why ABC would devote an entire evening of prime time Monday to the comedic actress who lost her life to ovarian cancer in 1989. But after watching the two programs, those viewers will get their answer.
The night begins with “Gilda Radner’s Greatest Moments,” a clip show that includes skits from her early career with Second City in Toronto and previously unseen home movies. That is followed by a two-hour movie, “Gilda Radner: It’s Always Something,” based on her posthumously published best-seller of the same title.
Jami Gertz (“Ally McBeal”) has the title role in the latter production, but it’s not exactly a glamorous one. For a large part of the movie, she’s either bald from chemotherapy or vomiting from bulimia.
The film is faithful to the book. Sometimes, however, that can be a problem. Viewers who decide in the first few moments if they are going to stick with a show will likely move on quickly. But those who stick around a little longer will be rewarded.
And the first scene is bound to confuse some: Radner is trapped on a cliff, hanging onto a branch, tigers all around, and rats gnawing on the branch. A strawberry dangles within reach, and she eats it. This Zen parable that begins her book — about savoring the good in life — just doesn’t translate well to television.
Early scenes about her childhood are slow. Radner was an overweight, stage-struck, but well-loved child with negligible talent. But she learned early on from her beloved nanny Dibby (Marcia Bennett of “Prince Charming”) that it was best to make fun of yourself before others got the chance. Dibby’s common refrain “never mind,” along with her beloved father’s “It’s always something,” provided Radner with two of her signature lines.
The movie’s greatest appeal is its love story. Radner was married to “SNL” musician G.E. Smith (J.D. Nicholsen) when she was cast in “Hanky Panky” in 1982. She fell in love instantly with leading man Gene Wilder, though he initially rejected her advances because she was married. Within six months, she and Smith divorced amicably, and Radner embarked on a mission to marry the twice-divorced Wilder.
The movie depicts a blissful union. Soon, however, Radner began to feel exhausted, but a variety of doctors could not pinpoint the problem.
When she was finally diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she had surgery and began a debilitating regimen of chemotherapy and radiation.
Yet Radner, ever the clown, found the humor in her predicament. There is one scene where she is bounding around her house in a white nightgown, cradling her Yorkie and joking about beating cancer. She wakes up Wilder, who is naturally confused, but ultimately, amused that in the midst of all this misery, she could joke.
Radner did everything she was supposed to do. She had a great attitude, underwent all the horrible treatments, and in the end, thought she had vanquished cancer.
“She thought it was in remission, and she thought she had beat it,” Gertz says. “A computer malfunction had misread her levels. It was just such a sad story. She lived to make people laugh.”
