Gilda Radner had the uncanny quality to create a strong, personal connection with an audience the moment she stepped onto the stage, and Lisa D’Apolito’s premiere documentary Love, Gilda allows a whole new audience to fall in love with her.
We are given the chance to laugh along with Radner as we witness the effortless fun in her most famous recurring characters during her run on Saturday Night (later called Saturday Night Live), and introduced to her darker offstage struggles to find love and acceptance at every milestone. Gilda Radner may not be a name the average person will recognize, but Love, Gilda introduces a new audience to the genius that was Radner, and the extraordinary legacy she left after her untimely death.
The film is a comprised montage of footage and photos from Radner’s childhood, schooling, Second City Toronto, SNL, Broadway show, and personal life with narration by Radner herself from found audio. Adoring celebrity fans, including Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy, Bill Hader, and Maya Rudolph, read pages from her notebook to create the storyline of her life (having read her memoir when I was in high school and dreaming of being the next Gilda Radner, it seems that the audiotapes and notebook pages may have been a draft or collection of ideas that Radner had for her memoir, which was released the same year she died). The seamless weaving of Radner’s experience with the fresh perspective of fellow castmates, including Laraine Newman and Chevy Chase, creates the beautiful tapestry that shows how powerful of a force Radner was on and off screen.
We start at the beginning, in 1950’s Detroit with a little girl who idolized any comedian willing to risk it for a laugh. Young Gilda would recreate their set in her backyard to perfection and hone her comedy sense. We are introduced to her father, Mr. Radner, and witness their strong connection, he encouraged laughter and fun in the household. For Mrs. Radner, her mother, it is quite the opposite. Gilda and her mother’s frayed relationship isn’t explained, but the tension may have begun when her mother had the doctor prescribe diet pills for the overweight 10-year-old. This may be where the seedling of doubt was planted about Gilda and her self-esteem. We then find out that her father died abruptly before she graduated from high school. Radner writes in her notebook that the sudden death of her father at such a formative time in her life may be why she has trouble maintaining lasting relationships with men.
Gilda used humor as a shield from and a mask for her pain. When reflecting about how comedy influenced her life, she wrote that she, “[used] comedy to be in control of my situation,” which could be alluding to how she looked for love and acceptance through her performance. She had become such a master at hiding the pain that even those close to her read her lively exuberance at face value. During her time in the Toronto’s cast of Godspell, Radner met and dated Martin Short for many years. Short remarked that when Gilda entered a room the energy would go to her instantly. He later admits that at 26, Radner was 22, he wasn’t capable of understanding how a woman who was so gifted in comedy could be anything but happy all the time. She struggled with an undiagnosed eating disorder that hits its peak when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd leave SNL to begin Blues Brothers, and the weight of carrying the show only ensnares her. In 1978, she is hospitalized weighing in at 104 lbs due to the pressure to be thin on tv. Radner remembers that, “life was abnormal for too long,” and that by building normal eating habits she will show that she loves herself and that she then could have a normal love life.
While reading pages in Gilda’s notebook, Amy Poehler reminisces about Radner’s influence on her own work during her SNL days and admits that every character she did was, “a weak, 2.0 version” of Radner’s best.
As a lifelong lover of Gilda, it is essential to discuss her influence on female comedians. Radner herself realized that “to be a girl and be funny means you have to sacrifice a lot of things because of your loud mouth.” Her fearlessness in her performances on SNL paved the way for future women to fight for their airtime and showed that women are meant to be more than just background or setting. During her time at Toronto’s Second City, she grew into the improviser we would come to know and love. Her scenes and characters weren’t as strong as her male counterparts, but she knew how to endear herself to audiences when her work was tanking. Her natural gift would only continue to serve her when an SNL sketch about Howdy Doody’s death was bombing, she instinctively flopped around and let her arms wrap around castmate Laraine Newman until the crowd was in stitches. Suddenly, Radner was the “cannot miss” castmate of the show. D’Apolito includes clips of Radner as Roseanna Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, and Baba Wawa and it is truly remarkable how quickly Gilda developed these characters and made them iconic. Gilda won an Emmy in 1978 for Outstanding Continuing or Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in Variety of Music, highlighting how her genius was truly one in a million. While reading pages in Gilda’s notebook, Amy Poehler reminisces about Radner’s influence on her own work during her SNL days and admits that every character she did was, “a weak, 2.0 version” of Radner’s best.
The film ends with Gilda beginning her life outside of the starlight. After her one-woman Broadway show, Radner was certain that she didn’t want to only play the character of Gilda Radner. She auditioned for movies and was cast in Hanky Panky alongside Gene Wilder. From that moment on, her life was profoundly changed for the better. Gilda thought fondly of her first time meeting Gene and remembered that she, “was hooked. It was like my life went from black and white to technicolor.
The movie does an excellent job of showing the tender and romantic nature of how the two fell in love and created a healthier and happier life away from New York. We see Gilda and Gene grow excited as they work together on Haunted Honeymoon- a box office flop- and learn that they are pregnant with their first child, only to be brokenhearted when she miscarries. Gilda battled constant fatigue and weakness as she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and believed that that was the end. Gilda found herself again while in the hospital and was on a mission to make cancer funny so people would talk about it, become aware of it, and seek treatment. Alan Zweibel, a close friend of Radner, recalled that she had said that, “[her] jokes were the only weapon against this fucker.” She spent her time recounting her life and experiences, and writing her autobiography “It’s Always Something,” which was published two weeks after her passing in 1989, and creating support groups for those suffering from cancer. Gene continued her legacy and founded Gilda’s Club, a community organization for those with cancer, family, and friends to find emotional and social support.
Love, Gilda is a perfect summation of what Gilda spent her life doing: spreading laughter and love. She wanted her life story to be neatly packaged, all loose ends tied up, and a happy ending to follow. This film achieves that dream ending for Radner. Maybe not in the way she had planned, but by the growth she experienced, chronicled, and then shared, we get to see how she lives on today, how her influence isn’t truly gone. Gilda said it perfectly when she criticized herself about ‘the perfect ending’ and had the epiphany that, ”… the beauty in life is not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what will happen next.” This exceptional documentary gives a new audience the perfect introduction while the devoted fan can gain a deeper appreciation for Gilda’s comedy style, pure genius, and legendary legacy.
88 minutes. ‘Love, Gilda’ is not yet rated. Opens Friday, September 21st at Landmark Nuart Theater.
