Rodney Dangerfield Biography

Fast Facts

• Started writing jokes when he was 15 and began performing at 20
• Claimed that he only saw his father for about two hours a year while growing up
• Started his performing career as a singing waiter and comic under the name Jack Roy
• Was 44 when he received his first big break by appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show
• Credited the movie The Godfather with inspiring his famous quip "I don't get no respect
• " Starred as an eccentric millionaire in the 1986 comedy Back to School
• Played against type as an abusive father in the 1994 crime drama Natural Born Killers
• Was the first entertainer to personally own a Web site when he launched one in 1995
• In 1996, was awarded $1 in damages for emotional distress from a lawsuit filed against Star magazine after it printed a story regarding Dangerfield's reported drug use
• Less than 10 years later he released his autobiography It's Not Easy Being Me: A Lifetime of No Respect But Plenty of Sex and Drugs
• Is buried in Los Angeles, where his headstone reads "There Goes the Neighborhood
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