Jack Roy (born Jacob Cohen; November 22, 1921 – October 5, 2004), better known by the stage name Rodney Dangerfield, was an American stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, and producer.

He subsequently starred in a string of comedy films such as Easy Money (1983), Back to School (1986), Rover Dangerfield (1991), Ladybugs (1992), and Meet Wally Sparks (1997).

He took a rare dramatic role as an abusive father in Oliver Stone's satirical crime film Natural Born Killers (1994).

Health troubles curtailed his output through the early 2000s before his death in 2004, following a month in a coma due to complications from heart valve surgery.

[5] He was the son of Jewish parents Dorothy "Dotty" Teitelbaum and the vaudevillian performer Phillip Cohen, whose stage name was Phil Roy.

[9] After Cohen's father abandoned the family, his mother moved him and his sister to Kew Gardens, Queens, where Dangerfield attended Richmond Hill High School, graduating in 1939.

[11][12] He struggled financially for nine years, at one point performing as a singing waiter until he was fired, before taking a job selling aluminum siding in the mid-1950s to support his wife and family.

Still working as a salesman by day, he returned to the stage, performing at hotels in the Catskill Mountains, but still finding minimal success.

Dangerfield's was the venue for several HBO comedy specials starring such stand-up comics as Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Tim Allen, Roseanne Barr, Robert Townsend, Jeff Foxworthy, Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks, Rita Rudner, Andrew Dice Clay, Louie Anderson, Dom Irrera, and Bob Saget.

[25] The video featured cameo appearances by Don Novello as a last rites priest munching on Rodney's last meal of fast food in a styrofoam container and Pat Benatar as a masked executioner pulling a hangman's knot.

[27] Dangerfield's appearance in Caddyshack led to starring roles in Easy Money and Back to School, for which he also served as co-writer.

Unlike his stand-up persona, his comedy film characters were portrayed as successful, confident and generally popular despite being characteristically loud, brash, and detested by the wealthy elite.

The show starred Jared Rushton as a teenager, also named Rodney, who could summon Dangerfield whenever he needed guidance about his life.

[29][30] In a change of pace from the comedy persona that made him famous, he played an abusive father in Natural Born Killers in a scene for which he wrote or rewrote all of his own lines.

From 1993 until his death, Dangerfield was married to Joan Child, whom he met in 1983 at a flower shop she owned in Santa Monica, California.

[39][40] At the time of a People magazine article on Dangerfield in 1980, he was sharing an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side with a housekeeper, his poodle Keno, and his closest friend of 30 years, Joe Ancis, whom Dangerfield called "the funniest man in the world";[41] Ancis was also a friend of and major influence on Lenny Bruce.

Although his wife Joan described him as "classy, gentlemanly, sensitive, and intelligent,"[45] he was often treated like the loser he played, and documented this in his 2004 autobiography, It's Not Easy Bein' Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.

[51] Upon entering the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, he uttered another characteristic one-liner when asked how long he would be hospitalized: "If all goes well, about a week.

This led his wife, Joan Dangerfield, to choose "There goes the neighborhood" as the epitaph on his headstone, which has become so well known that it has been used as a New York Times crossword puzzle clue.

[53][54] Dangerfield's widow held an event in which the word "respect" had been emblazoned in the sky, while each guest was given a live monarch butterfly for a butterfly-release ceremony led by Farrah Fawcett.

[55] UCLA's Division of Neurosurgery named a suite of operating rooms after him and gave him the "Rodney Respect Award", which his widow presented to Jay Leno on October 20, 2005.

[56] Other recipients of the "Rodney Respect Award" include Tim Allen (2007),[57] Jim Carrey (2009), Louie Anderson (2010),[58] Bob Saget (2011), Chelsea Handler (2012),[59] Chuck Lorre (2013),[60] Kelsey Grammer (2014),[61] Brad Garrett (2015),[62] Jon Lovitz (2016),[63] Jamie Masada (2019),[64] Jimmy Fallon (2021),[65] Whitney Cummings (2022),[66] and Ken Jeong (2024).

[67] In memoriam, Saturday Night Live ran a short sketch of Dangerfield (played by Darrell Hammond) at the gates of heaven.

Saint Peter replies, "I just wanted to hear those jokes one more time" and waves him into heaven, prompting Dangerfield to joyfully declare: "Finally!

[76] Beginning on June 12, 2017, Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy hosted the first class of The Rodney Dangerfield Institute of Comedy.