Editing Gilda Radner (section)

==Illness==
In 1985, while she was on the set of ''[[Haunted Honeymoon]]'' in the United Kingdom, Radner began to feel severe fatigue, and she also began to feel severe pain in her upper legs. She sought medical treatment, and for a period of 10 months, various doctors, most of them in Los Angeles, gave her several diagnoses but all of them turned out to be wrong; meanwhile, she continued to feel pain.<ref name="something" />

During those 10 months, she also faced hardships such as the publication of Hill and Weingrad's highly publicized book about ''Saturday Night Live'', which contained many details about her eating disorder<ref name="history" /><ref name="something" /> as well as the financial failure of ''Haunted Honeymoon'', which had only grossed $8,000,000 in the United States, entering the box-office-returns ranking at number 8, then slipping to 14 the following week.

Finally, on October 21, 1986, Radner was diagnosed with [[Cancer staging|stage IV]] [[ovarian cancer]].<ref name="something" /><ref name="cr">{{cite web|author= Song, Jenny| url= http://www.crmagazine.org/archive/spring%202009/Pages/AmericasFunnyGirl.aspx|title=America's Funny Girl|website=CRMagazine.org|date=Spring 2009|access-date=April 1, 2009 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160910065324/http://www.crmagazine.org/archive/spring%202009/Pages/AmericasFunnyGirl.aspx|archive-date=September 10, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> She immediately underwent surgery and had a hysterectomy.<ref name="cr" /> On October 26, surgeons removed a grapefruit-size tumor from her abdomen. Radner then began [[chemotherapy]] and [[radiation therapy]] treatment, as she wrote in ''It's Always Something'', and the treatment caused extreme physical and emotional pain.<ref name="something" />

After her diagnosis, the ''[[National Enquirer]]'' ran the headline "Gilda Radner In Life-Death Struggle" in its following issue. Without asking for her comment,<ref name="something" /> the editors of the publication asserted that she was dying. Radner wrote in ''It's Always Something'':
{{Blockquote|They found an old photo of me looking frightened from a 'Saturday Night Live' sketch and blew that up to make the point. What they did probably sold newspapers, but it had a devastating effect on my family and my friends. It forced Gene [Wilder] to compose a press release to respond. He said that I had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, had surgery, and my prognosis was good. The ''Enquirer'' doesn't like good news, so the Gilda Radner story stopped running.<ref name="something"/>}}

Radner saw her ''Saturday Night Live'' castmates one last time at [[Laraine Newman]]'s 36th birthday party (in March 1988).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Daval |first1=Malina |title=Laraine Newman Reflects on Her Life, Career in Memoir 'May You Live in Interesting Times' |url= https://variety.com/2021/tv/spotlight/laraine-newman-reflects-on-her-life-career-in-memoir-may-you-live-in-interesting-times-1234922031/ |website= [[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |date=March 5, 2021 |access-date=July 25, 2022}}</ref> According to Bill Murray,<ref>{{cite book|last=Shales|first=Tom|title=Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live| year= 2010 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn= 978-0-316-73565-0|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aNDb1d2i9KkC&q=Gilda%20got%20married%20and%20went%20away&pg=PT318}}</ref> when he heard she was about to leave the party, he and [[Dan Aykroyd]] carried her around the Los Angeles house where the party was held so that she could say goodbye to everyone, and so that she wouldn't leave, as described by Bill Murray in detail in the book "Live from New York."

===Remission===
After Radner was told that she had gone into [[Remission (medicine)|remission]], she wrote ''It's Always Something'' (a catchphrase of her character [[Roseanne Roseannadanna]]),<ref name="something" /> which included details of her struggle with the illness. ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' did a March 1988 cover story on her illness, titled "Gilda Radner's Answer to Cancer: Healing the Body with Mind and Heart." 

Wanting to return to television, Radner [[List of It%27s Garry Shandling%27s Show episodes#Season 2 (1987–88)|guest-starred]] on ''[[It's Garry Shandling's Show]]'' on March 18, 1988, unannounced, mentioning on-camera that a cancer diagnosis and treatment explained the long hiatus in her entertainment career. According to Alan Zweibel, Radner had been nervous about appearing on the show, worrying that she had been out of the spotlight so long that no one would remember her. When she appeared on-camera, she received loud applause. This was Radner's final TV appearance.<ref>{{Cite web |last=VanHooker |first=Brian |date=May 23, 2023 |title=Founding 'Saturday Night Live' Writer Alan Zweibel Remembers Gilda Radner's Final TV Appearance |url=https://www.cracked.com/article_38108_founding-saturday-night-live-writer-alan-zweibel-remembers-gilda-radners-final-tv-appearance.html |access-date=January 26, 2025 |website=Cracked.com |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web |last=Hoglund |first=Andy |date=February 26, 2019 |title=Alan Zweibel Looks Back on Working With Gilda Radner and His Other SNL Friends |url=https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/alan-zweibel-snl-gilda-radner-interview.html |access-date=January 26, 2025 |website=Vulture |language=en}}</ref> After the appearance, HBO president [[Michael J. Fuchs|Michael Fuchs]] discussed the possibility of giving Radner a new show created by Zweibel and Shandling.<ref name=":4" />

Radner was scheduled to host an episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' [[Saturday Night Live (season 13)|in the spring of 1988]], which would have made her the first female former cast member to host the show, but the [[1988 Writers Guild of America strike|writers' strike]] forced production to shut down before the end of the season.<ref>{{cite web |last= Evans| first= Bradford |url= https://www.vulture.com/2012/03/the-lost-roles-of-gilda-radner.html|title=The Lost Roles of Gilda Radner|website=[[NYMag.com]]|date=March 22, 2012|access-date=June 24, 2021}}</ref>

===Recurrence, death, and ''SNL'' response===
In September 1988, after tests showed no signs of cancer, Radner went on a [[maintenance chemotherapy]] treatment to prolong her remission, but three months later, in December, she learned that the cancer had returned.<ref name="cr" />

On May 17, 1989, she was admitted to [[Cedars-Sinai Medical Center]] in Los Angeles to undergo a [[CT scan]]. She was given a sedative and lapsed into a coma during the scan.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |url= https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gilda-radner-club_b_2366303|title=Gilda Radner Remembered|last1=Karras|first1=Steven |date=January 6, 2013|website=HuffPost |language=en|access-date=November 22, 2019}}</ref> She did not regain consciousness and died three days later, on May 20, 1989; Wilder was at her side. The cause of death was [[ovarian cancer]].<ref name="obit">{{cite news|author=Hevesi, Dennis |url= https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEFD81230F932A15756C0A96F948260 |title=Gilda Radner, 42, Comic Original Of 'Saturday Night Live' Zaniness|newspaper=The New York Times|date= May 21, 1989}}</ref>

News of Radner's death broke as [[Steve Martin]] was rehearsing for his guest-host role on that night's season finale of ''Saturday Night Live''. The show's performers and crew, including [[Lorne Michaels]], [[Phil Hartman]], and [[Mike Myers]] (who had, in his own words, "fallen in love" with Radner after playing her son in a [[BC Hydro]] commercial on Canadian television and considered her the reason he wanted to be on ''SNL''),<ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.talktalk.co.uk/entertainment/film/biography/artist/mike-myers/biography/86?page=2|title=Mike Myers biography|website=Talktalk.co.uk|access-date=July 26, 2014}}</ref> had been unaware of the severity of Radner's condition. 

Martin abandoned his opening monologue, and he tearfully introduced a video clip of a 1978 sketch in which he and Radner had parodied [[Fred Astaire]] and [[Cyd Charisse]] in the well-known dance routine ''Dancing in the Dark'' from ''[[The Band Wagon]]'' (1953).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Shales |first1=Tom |title=Live from New York : the complete, uncensored history of Saturday Night Live as told by its stars, writers, and guests |last2=Miller |first2=Andrew James |publisher=Back Bay Books |year=2015 |isbn=9780316295062 |edition=Revised |location=New York, NY |pages=349–350 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Ronald L. |title=Who's who in comedy: comedians, comics, and clowns from vaudeville to today's stand-ups |publisher=Facts on File |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-8160-2338-7 |location=New York |pages=388 |language=en}}</ref> After the clip, Martin said it reminded him of "how great she was, and of how young I looked. Gilda, we miss you."<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 8, 2018 |title=SNL Transcripts: Steve Martin: 05/20/89: Steve Martin's Monologue - SNL Transcripts Tonight |url=https://snltranscripts.jt.org/88/88tmono.phtml |access-date=February 10, 2025 |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Finke |first=Nikki |date=1989-05-22 |title=Gilda's Final Gift: A Tale of Courage |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-05-22-vw-463-story.html |access-date=2025-02-25 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref> [[G. E. Smith]], Radner's first husband, who was ''Saturday Night Live'''s bandleader, wore a [[black armband]] throughout the episode.

Radner was interred at Long Ridge Union Cemetery in [[Stamford, Connecticut]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fame and Fortune Laid to Rest - The New York Times > N.Y. / Region > Slide Show > Slide 4 of 15 |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/10/26/nyregion/1026cemetery_4.html |access-date=January 25, 2025 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}</ref>