Madeline Kahn was a comic legend who could do anything with her voice.
She made bad movies good, good movies great and great movies classics.
A little Madeline Kahn goes a long way.
Kahn didnt have to star in a movie to be the most memorable thing in it.
She didnt need more than fifteen minutes of screen time to steal a movie.
She made bad films good, good films great and great films classic.
We were supposed to be rooting for Barbara Streisand, but how could we not love Madeline.
Her baby talk whispers, little girl lisps, her entire speech impediment repertoire.
We loved even her most cloying portrayals, her most annoying attitudes.
Madeline Kahn is never doing just one thing onscreen.
She insinuates interior and ulterior motives behind double and triple entendre.
She imbues the most innocent lines with innuendo.
Neil Simon, Peter Bogdanovich, Carol Burnett and Bill Cosby all found channels for her comic genius.
Kahn is just as funny singing a joke as she is telling it.
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Madeline Kahn debuted in Boston under the name Madeline Gail Wolfson.
Her parents divorced when she was a kid and she moved with her mom to Queens.
As a kid, Madeline liked to perform, but not in front of people.
She and a friend were picked to sing Cool Water on Horn and Hardarts TV show Childrens Hour.
They werent asked back again.
Kahn started in musical theater.
After she graduated in 1964 she fell into a depression and realized she wanted to be an actor.
Madeline debuted on stage as a chorus girl in a Kiss Me, Kate revival.
She almost quit show business.
She was asked to audition for a part inCandideat Lincoln Center while at a birthday party for Leonard Bernstein.
Danny Kaye tread water as Noah, but had an accident onstage three months into the run.
She won a Tony nomination for her performance in David RabesIn the Boom Boom Roomin 1973.
She was afraid of Barbra Streisand, of winding up on the cutting room floor and of palm trees.
That line wasnt in the script, but young Tatum ONeill encouraged Kahn to go with it.
Kahn was playful and sexy and sad and in a hurry.
ONeal is still the youngest Oscar winner ever.
Bogdanovich took out full page ads to apologize for that.
In 1973, Madeline Kahn played a schoolteacher inFrom the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.
I dont know how they did it.
In person, she looks like a 103-year-old chorus girl, but in the movie she looks thirty-five.)
This freed Kahn to become legendary herself.
Madeleine Kahn became a comic legend in 1974 with the one-two Mel Brooks punch ofBlazing SaddlesandYoung Frankenstein.
She got Cleavon Little to loosen his bullets and prove wumours of the gifts of his people was twoo.
She got another supporting actress nomination for her work alongside Harvey Korman, Gene Wilder and Slim Pickins.
Her world famous wendition of Im So Tired (Im tired, so tired.
Ive had thousands of men again and again.
They start with Byron and Shelley and jump on your belly and bust your balloon.
Theyre always coming and going and going and coming, and always too soon.
Lets face it; everything below the waist is kaput.
She was bushed.)
It was a caricature of Marlene Dietrichs vampy part in the 1939 classic western,Destry Rides Again.
Kahn wears a blue pin-striped suit with a bowler hat, because she couldnt get away with the tuxedo.
The blonde in the turban was just as funny in black and white in Young Frankenstein.
Victoria barely represses her sexual longings as she gets closer to Brooks Dr. Thorndyke.
What are you wearing?
I bet theyre tight.
Barry Levinson was one of the co-writers of the screenplay and appears in a cameo in the film.
My tits are falling off).
Competence, played by Dena Dietrich, helped her make her selection.
As Estie Del Ruth, she walkedWon Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywoodin 1976.
No, Carmen Montenegro.
Thats my last one, I promise!
in the Neil Simon satire of all things Bogart,The Cheap Detective, in 1978.
He thinks hes Gods prophet and his life parallels Moses.
Richard Pryor was signed to do a one-day cameo as the Pharaoh on the last day of shooting.
Kahn starred in her own TV seriesMadeline, which was based on the British seriesPig in the Middle.
She played Madeline Wayne who is married to a romance novelist who writes under the name Crystal Love.
Love is really a pretty bland guy named Charlie and Madeline wants to go swinging and eat health food.
The show aired on ABC from September 27, 1983 to March 13, 1984.
Kahn starred in ABC Comedy Factorys pilot episode ofChameleonin 1986, but ABC never aired the show.
A professional black widow, Mrs. White had already buried two husbands.
He never reappeared because he wasnt a very good illusionist.
The second husband was a stupidly optimistic man.
His head had been cut off, and so had his, uh.
Singing For Hes a Jolly Good Fellow, Kahn also proved she could pull laughs with musical counterpoint.
Kahns best work has been in great ensembles.
She was a stellar host onSaturday Night Liveand guested on theCarol Burnett Show.
She coaches Eunice to act a small part filled with numbed despair and doomed frivolity.
Later in the show, Kahn plumbed the comic possibilities of Jeanette MacDonald singing ooh.
Kahn played Betty inYellowbeard, Marty Feldmans last film appearance.
Last time I read a book, I was raped.
She throws cold water on an obscene phone caller by admitting Im simply crushed.
Here, Ive waited all my whole life for you and now you dont even want me.
Do go on, I do believe you were discussing my cherry.
She played Molly Ringwalds mother in the 1990 film Betsys Wedding.
Madeline Kahn gave a deeply nuanced performance in the brief role of Martha Mitchell in Oliver StonesNixonfrom 1995.
(Martha Mitchell and Madeline Kahn both died at the age of 57).
Kahn ends her reminiscences by writing Never.
Kahn received some of the best reviews of her career her final film, the 1999 independent movieJudy Berlin.
Kahn played Alice Gold, her husband is a school principal who has a fling with a schoolteacher.
Madeline Kahn married her long-time companion, John Hansbury, in October 1999.
Mel Brooks said Madeline Kahn was maybe the single best comedian that ever lived.
She left us much too soon.
There is a bench in Central Park dedicated to her.
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