Gilbert Gottfried was, without a doubt, in my Top 5 comedians of all time. If you’ve never read his autobiography, Rubber Balls & Liquor, he talks about how he never wanted to be famous; he just wanted to skip ahead to the part of his career where there were no expectations but he could still get booked for Hollywood Squares. Somehow, he accomplished that.
He was a guy who went from a failed SNL season to being in a Disney movie and then back to screaming about Erector sets on VH1’s I Love the 80’s. He made it okay to be funny again after 9/11, then got fired by Aflac for making tsunami jokes on Twitter and then became the first person to play both Abraham Lincoln and Hitler in a professional capacity.
His podcast was constantly in rotation for me over these past several years.
My deepest condolences to his wife, Dara, and their children. May they find strength in the legacy Gilbert left behind.
Now can somebody PLEASE check up on Jeff Ross?
