1908-11-18 ( 116 years old ) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Imogene Fernandez de Coca (November 18, 1908 – June 2, 2001) was an American comic actress best known for her role opposite Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows.
Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat, she studied ballet and wished to have a serious career in music and dance, graduating to decades of stage musical revues, cabaret and summer stock. Finally in her 40s she began a celebrated career as a comedienne in television, starring in six series and guesting on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s.
She was nominated for five Emmy awards for Your Show of Shows, winning Best Actress in 1951 and singled out for a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting in 1953. Coca was also nominated for a Tony Award in 1978 for On the Twentieth Century and received a sixth Emmy nomination at the age of 80 for an episode of Moonlighting.
She possessed a rubbery face capable of the broadest expressions—Life magazine compared her to Beatrice Lillie and Charlie Chaplin, and described her characterizations as taking "people or situations suspended in their own precarious balance between dignity and absurdity, and push(ing) them over the cliff with one single, pointed gesture"—the magazine noted a "particularly high-brow critic" as observing, "The trouble with most comedians who try to do satire is that they are essentially brash, noisy and indelicate people who have to use a sledge hammer 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."
In addition to vaudeville, cabaret, theater and television, she appeared in film, voiced children's cartoons and was even featured in an MTV video by a New Wave band. Though her fame began late, she worked well into her 80s. Twice a widow, Coca died in 2001.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Imogene Coca, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Movies
Mel Brooks: Unwrapped
2018-02-17
In the Beginning: The Caesar Years
2012-11-13
Television: The First Fifty Years
1999-01-01
Hollywood: The Movie
1996-01-01
Buy & Cell
1989-01-27
The Little Match Girl
1987-12-01
Papa Was a Preacher
1986-09-19
Nothing Lasts Forever
1984-09-06
National Lampoon's Vacation
1983-07-29
Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner
1981-11-01
The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies
1981-10-06
A Special Sesame Street Christmas
1978-12-08
Rabbit Test
1978-04-09
Too Easy to Kill
1975-10-14
Ten from Your Show of Shows
1973-02-23
The Sound of Laughter
1963-12-17
Under the Yum-Yum Tree
1963-10-23
Promises! Promises!
1963-08-01
Dime a Dance
1937-12-23
Bashful Ballerina
1937-09-17
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