Celebrity Deathwatch: Imogene Coca, Actress, 92

["Deathwatch Central" <cdw@slick.org>]

http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/News/06/02/obit.coca.02/index.html

Actress Imogene Coca dead at 92
June 2, 2001 Posted: 2:09 p.m. EDT (1809 GMT)


WESTON, Connecticut (CNN) -- Actress Imogene Coca died Saturday in her
Westport home at the age of 92.

The 5-foot-3-inch comedienne with the flexible face who co-starred with Sid
Caesar on television's "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950s, died at 12:30
a.m., of natural causes, her friend Mark Basile said.

"She died a very peaceful death, she had not been ill," Basile said. "She
was a great, great person, a great humanitarian, singer, dancer."

"All the wonderful times we shared meant the world to me. It was a pleasure
working with her. I will miss her dearly," Caesar said from his home in
Beverly Hills, California.

Coca was born November 18, 1908, in Philadelphia, an only child to Sadie
Brady -- a magician's assistant and chorus girl -- and Joseph Fernandez de
Coca, a violinist and orchestra conductor.

Her mother got her 11-year-old daughter her first showbiz job -- as a
dancer. It paid about $2.

At age 15 she was performing in Jimmy Durante's Silver Slipper, a New York
nightclub.

She made her Broadway debut in "When You Smile," starring Jeanette
MacDonald, and worked in vaudeville and supper clubs.

She moved into comedy at age 26 when the heat failed in the theater as the
actors were preparing to present a revue called "New Faces of 1934." Coca,
who had donned an oversized overcoat to keep out the chill, was sent on
stage with a young Henry Fonda by director Leonard Sillman to distract the
crowd while the electricity was being fixed.

Coca started miming, which transfixed the audience, and Sillman incorporated
the bit into the show.

Critics hailed the diminutive dancer as a bright new comedienne. "That's how
the comedy started," Basile said.

In the 1930s and 1940s, she developed routines at Tamiment, a camp in the
Catskills created by director Max Liebman. There, she worked with
up-and-coming actors such as Danny Kaye and his wife Sylvia Fine.

In the late 1940s, Liebman called her and told her he had a contract to
produce four shows for the new medium of television. The shows, called
"Admiral's Broadway Revue," became "Your Show of Shows," with Sid Caesar.
The show ran from 1950 to 1954 on NBC.

"The great thing about Imogene," said Liebman, "is that one nostril never
knows what the other is doing."

Coca, who lived most of her life in New York City, had a career that spanned
eight decades. A popular television guest star, she had her own variety show
for a season called "The Imogene Coca Show" on NBC and, in the early 1960s,
she starred in "Grindl," about a part-time worker of odd jobs.

She also had guest appearances in "Bewitched," "Moonlighting," "Playhouse
90" and "One Life to Live."

Comediennes Lily Tomlin, Whoopi Goldberg and Tracey Ullman credited her with
inspiring their work.

On film, she played Aunt Edna strapped to the roof of a car in "National
Lampoon's Vacation" with Chevy Chase. She also played a feature role in
"Under the Yum Yum Tree" with Jack Lemmon.

"She was a phenomenal inspiration," said Basile. "The most important thing
to me is that she was a great human being. What you saw was what you got."

Coca also loved to perform, he said. "You could see the exchange of energy
that she was putting out and getting back from the audience."

She liked "Designing Women" and other recent-vintage television shows, but
"kind of missed the gentility of a former era, when it wasn't such harsh
comedy," Basile said.

Though she spent most of her life in New York City, Coca moved five years
ago to Connecticut, where she had had summer homes, after her health started
to fail.

"She had a great ride, a great ride," Basile said.

Coca, who had no children, was married in 1934 to Bob Burton, who arranged
music for her sketches. He died in 1953. She married actor King Donovan in
1960. He died in 1987.

At Coca's request there will be no funeral service.

A lover of pets, she formed the Imogene Coca Charitable Foundation, which
will donate proceeds to the Humane Society and human and civil rights
groups.

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