Comic actress Imogene Coca dies
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, June 2, 2001
Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. — Imogene Coca, the elfin actress and satiric comedian who co-starred with Sid Caesar on television’s classic "Your Show of Shows" in the 1950s, died Saturday. She was 92.
Coca died of natural causes at her Westport, Conn., residence, said longtime friend Mark Basile.
"She was a humanist," Basile said. "Her humanity was so strong, so giving. She made people want to be with her.’
Coca’s saucer eyes, fluttering lashes, big smile and boundless energy lit up the screen in television’s Golden Age and brought her an Emmy as best actress in 1951. Although she did some broad burlesque, her forte was subtle exaggeration.
A talented singer and dancer, her spoofs of opera divas and prima ballerinas tiptoed a fine line between dignity and absurdity until she pushed them over the edge at the end.
"The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire," a critic once wrote, "is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledgehammer to smash a butterfly. Miss Coca, on the other hand, is the timid woman who, when aroused, can beat a tiger to death with a feather."
With Caesar she performed skits that satirized the everyday — marital spats, takeoffs on films and TV programs, strangers meeting and speaking in cliches. "The Hickenloopers" husband-and-wife skit became a staple.
"All the wonderful times we shared together meant the world to me. It was a pleasure to work with her. I will miss her dearly," Caesar said in a statement released Saturday in Beverly Hills.
Once Coca and Caesar pantomimed a wife posing for her amateur photographer husband. He kept rearranging her mobile features for the perfect look, and wherever he put her lip or eyebrow, that’s where it stayed.
"The great thing about Imogene is that her left nostril never knows what the right one is doing," director-producer Max Liebman said.
Show business came naturally to Coca, who was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 18, 1908. Her father was an orchestra conductor, her mother an actress and vaudeville dancer; Imogene was their only child.
She started piano lessons at age 5, singing lessons at 6 and dancing class at 7. She made her stage debut as a dancer at 9 and did a solo singing stint in vaudeville at 11.
It was not until 1949, when she was hired by Liebman for his televised "Admiral Broadway Revue," that she became widely known.
She was an immediate hit, as was Caesar, another cast member. They starred together the following year when the program became "Your Show of Shows," a 90-minute, live program on Saturday nights.
Writers for the program included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen and Larry Gelbart, but everyone contributed, including the stars.
She was married in 1935 to Robert Burton; he arranged the music for many of her sketches. Burton died in 1955, and five years later she married actor King Donovan. They often performed in the theater together. He died in 1987.
Coca had no immediate family.
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