Gilda Radner

Gilda Susan Radner (June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989) was an American comedienne and actress. She was best remembered as an original cast member of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy Award in 1978.

Early life

Radner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Jewish parents, Henrietta (née Dworkin), a legal secretary, and Herman Radner, a businessman. She grew up in Detroit with a nanny, Elizabeth Clementine Gillies, whom she called "Dibby" (and on whom she based her famous character Emily Litella), and an older brother named Michael. She attended the exclusive University Liggett School in Detroit (it began its relocation to Grosse Pointe later that year). Toward the end of her life, Radner wrote in her autobiography, It's Always Something, that during her childhood and young adulthood she battled numerous eating disorders: "I coped with stress by having every possible eating disorder from the time I was nine years old. I have weighed as much as 160 pounds and as little as 93. When I was a kid, I overate constantly. My weight distressed my mother and she took me to a doctor who put me on Dexedrine diet pills when I was ten years old."

Howard Stern

Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio and television personality, producer, author, actor, and photographer. He is best known as the host of The Howard Stern Show, his long-running radio show which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1986 to 2005 before its move to Sirius XM Radio in 2006. Stern first wished to be on the radio at five years of age. He landed his first radio jobs while at Boston University—WTBU, the campus station, and WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts. From 1976 to 1982, Stern developed his on-air personality through morning positions at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, New York, WCCC in Hartford, Connecticut, WWWW in Detroit, Michigan, and WWDC in Washington, D.C. Stern worked afternoons at WNBC in New York City from 1982 until his firing in 1985.

In 1985, Stern began a 20-year run at WXRK in New York City, where his show was syndicated to 60 markets and attracted 20 million listeners. Stern won numerous awards, including Billboard’s Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year eight times. He became the most fined radio host when the Federal Communications Commission issued fines totaling $2.5 million to station licensees for content it deemed indecent. Stern became one of the highest paid radio figures after signing a five-year deal with Sirius in 2004 worth $500 million. In recent years, Stern took up photography and has had work featured in Hamptons and WHIRL magazines. From 2012 to 2015, he served as a judge on America's Got Talent.

John Candy

John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian, mainly in American films such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) and Uncle Buck (1989).

Candy rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its related Second City Television series, and through his appearances in such comedy films as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, Summer Rental, The Great Outdoors, Spaceballs and Uncle Buck, as well as more dramatic roles in Only the Lonely and JFK. One of his most renowned onscreen performances was as Del Griffith, the loquacious, on-the-move shower-curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

While filming the Western parody Wagons East!, Candy died of a heart attack in Durango, Mexico, on March 4, 1994, aged 43. His final two films, Wagons East! and Canadian Bacon, are dedicated to his memory.

Biography

Early life and career (1950–1980)

Candy was born in 1950 in Newmarket, Ontario. The son of Sidney James Candy and his wife Evangeline (Aker) Candy, he was brought up in a working class Roman Catholic family. Candy's father was of English and Scottish descent, while his mother was of Polish and Ukrainian descent.