The endur­ing lega­cy of Gil­da Radner

Peo­ple would some­times me ask at par­ties, ​‘If you had a DeLore­an, which moment in his­to­ry would you trav­el back in time for?’ As I sit in the reflect­ed light of a Sun­set Boule­vard bill­board across the road from the Château Mar­mont, where John Belushi passed away in 1982, a whis­per tells me that my moment would be the 35^th birth­day par­ty of Laraine New­man, one of the three orig­i­nal female stars on NBC’s hit show Sat­ur­day Night Live.

This par­ty was in 1987, and Belushi was already gone, but oth­er­wise it was the last time the orig­i­nal Not Ready for Prime-Time Play­ers would be togeth­er. For the most part, any­way. Chevy Chase had fig­u­ra­tive­ly ​“died right after his first movie with Goldie Hawn,” as Belushi put it, mus­ing over the graves of his co-stars in Tom Schiller’s iron­ic short film Don’t Look Back in Anger. Chase’s replace­ment from mid­way through sea­son two, Bill Mur­ray, was the one to car­ry the tired, ter­mi­nal­ly ill Gil­da Rad­ner, the first true break­out super­star of the group, round and round the house, pro­long­ing her depar­ture from the par­ty with every­one say­ing good­bye a hun­dred times, not know­ing it would be their last. Or so the sto­ry goes.

In Lisa D’Apolito’s new doc­u­men­tary Love, Gil­da, Radner’s sto­ry is told in her own words. Cur­rent SNL super­stars sit with dropped jaws as they realise they are read­ing from her hand­writ­ten note­books. Amy Poehler con­sid­ers all her char­ac­ters ​“Gil­da 2.0”. Born in Detroit in 1946 to Jew­ish immi­grant par­ents, Rad­ner quick­ly began using her com­ic tal­ents to counter school­room bul­ly­ing over her weight. For many years she strug­gled with eat­ing dis­or­ders and diet pills her moth­er had put her on as a child.

After find­ing a niche as a children’s enter­tain­er, Rad­ner went on to per­form along­side on-off boyfriend Mar­tin Short in the orig­i­nal pro­duc­tion of God­spell. After SNL land­ed in 1975, guest appear­ances in The Rut­les’ All You Need is Cash and SNL off­shoot Mr Mike’s Mon­do Video sup­port­ed the vein of sketch com­e­dy as the ​’80s approached. A gift­ed voice actor, Rad­ner pro­vid­ed all the female char­ac­ters oppo­site Bil­ly Crys­tal and Har­ry Shear­er in Ani­ma­lympics, the fea­ture debut of Tron direc­tor Steve Lis­berg­er. Witch­es Night Out remains a sta­ple of the Amer­i­can Halloween.

Sat­ur­day Night Live was not shown in the UK until 1992, when the BBC ran some late-night cut-downs from that year’s sea­son fea­tur­ing San­dler, Schnei­der and Walken as the Triv­ial Psy­chic. Fans who traced the roots of the orig­i­nal 1975 – 77 cast from hit films like Ghost­busters, Nation­al Lampoon’s Vaca­tion and It Came from Hol­ly­wood had no real access to the canon of Gar­rett Mor­ris, Jane Curtin, Laraine New­man and Gil­da Rad­ner. ​‘Best of’ VHS com­pi­la­tions were hunt­ed and clips used in doc­u­men­taries such as Rex Bloomstein’s 1990 BBC Are­na entry Next Time, Dear God, Please Choose Some­one Else. Today SNL’s YouTube chan­nel has thou­sands of sketch­es includ­ing all the ear­ly work that earned Rad­ner her posi­tion as nat­ur­al suc­ces­sor to Lucille Ball, the icon­ic come­di­an who pio­neered the Hol­ly­wood crèche which remains open on the Para­mount back­lot to this day.

In 1989, when Gil­da died a pre­ventable death from ovar­i­an can­cer a month before her 43^rd birth­day, she was best known in the UK as wife and co-star of Gene Wilder, the sub­ject of many trib­utes him­self since pass­ing in 2016. Radner’s film with Bob Newhart, First Fam­i­ly, had made lit­tle impres­sion, and Charles Grodin’s Movers & Shak­ers also failed to secure an inter­na­tion­al release. Even Mike Nichols’ Gil­da Live, a per­ma­nent record of Radner’s sold out Broad­way show, is only now receiv­ing a the­atri­cal screen­ing in London.

Wilder reunit­ed with his Stir Crazy direc­tor Sid­ney Poiti­er for the 1982 Hitch­cock spoof Han­ky Panky, where he and Rad­ner met on set. You can see them fall in love on cam­era. Two years lat­er Wilder wrote a part for Rad­ner in The Woman in Red, an oth­er­wise unal­tered remake of 1976’s Par­don Mon Affaire, show­cas­ing her com­ic genius as the woman scorned in a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty. Their next joint ven­ture, Haunt­ed Hon­ey­moon, was a noto­ri­ous flop but remains a favourite among fans of both stars and come­dies in that tradition.

Filmed in Lon­don while Rad­ner was becom­ing sick and receiv­ing exper­i­men­tal treat­ments that ulti­mate­ly failed, Haunt­ed Hon­ey­moon glows with the sense of romance with which the cou­ple sur­round­ed them­selves and marks her final film appear­ance. A year after her ground­break­ing 1988 appear­ance on the show of friend Gar­ry Shan­dling, Rad­ner lost her bat­tle. Her beloved Wilder went on to cre­ate Gilda’s Club, a can­cer sup­port and aware­ness net­work with bases across North Amer­i­ca, in her honour.

At Love, Gilda’s Los Ange­les pre­mière, the room is emo­tion­al­ly charged as the post-cred­it stinger rolled – the feel­ing one of deep con­nec­tion, even among strangers. My guests, vet­er­an com­ic Marc ​“Skip­py” Price and his part­ner, the actor Angela Jones, step out­side for air. Behind me, Gold­en Globe nom­i­nee Diane Veno­ra is in floods of tears. She is a sur­vivor and over­whelmed by the bless­ing of this moment. Leg­endary comedian’s come­di­an Richard Lewis looks stunned, stirred and elat­ed all at once. I turn into a prat­fall in a par­ty dress, knock­ing things over, drop­ping drinks, bump­ing into stuff and stand­ing in the wrong place with AMPAS secu­ri­ty pick­ing up after me, smil­ing, reas­sur­ing me, ​‘We’ve got your back, kid’. I hide in the toi­let of the Lin­wood Dunn The­atre until I receive mes­sages ask­ing where I am. There are peo­ple who want to meet me.

Meryl Gold­smith, an exec­u­tive pro­duc­er on the film, comes from a fam­i­ly who know the Rad­ners well, although was too young to remem­ber her own meet­ings with Gil­da. As with all pre­cious things, the Rad­ner estate is well pro­tect­ed. Pitch­ing in to Lisa D’Apolito’s Indiegogo cam­paign began an asso­ci­a­tion that thrives on mutu­al respect and earned trust. Plus, of course, a gen­uine love. As the first true super­star of Sat­ur­day Night Live and a house­hold name across the US by the end of its first sea­son, it is impor­tant that Radner’s sto­ry is told by the right peo­ple. It is long overdue.

Rebec­ca Nicole Williams has curat­ed the ​‘We Love Gil­da!’ cel­e­bra­tion at the Phoenix Cin­e­ma in East Finch­ley, start­ing with the Euro­pean pre­mière of Love, Gil­da on 9 Decem­ber. The ret­ro­spec­tive also fea­tures 35mm screen­ings of Han­ky Panky, The Woman in Red and Haunt­ed Hon­ey­moon.