He was 67.
“We are saddened to announce the death of our beloved Gilbert Gottfried after a long illness. In addition to being a great voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father of his two young children. A sad day for all of us, please continue laugh as loudly as possible in Gilbert’s honor, “his family wrote in a Twitter post.
CNN has contacted Gottfried’s reporter for further comments.
Although the audience knows him for his creepy tone, it was not yet his signature when he started as an actor in “Saturday Night Live” for a period from 1980 to 1981, one of the few periods without Lorne Michaels at the helm. He played mostly uprising in the eighties and appeared regularly on the radio show Howard Stern.
Although he played a small part in the 80’s hit “Beverly Hills Cop 2”, Gottfried’s fame increased in the nineties. Throughout the decade, he used his own screaming speech in parts of cartoons like “Aladdin,” as Iago’s bullshit, as well as live comedies like “Problem Child,” in which he played an honest adoption worker.
In 2000 and 2010, Gottfried appeared in voice roles in shows such as “Family Guy” and as a “talking head” in reality shows, including “Celebrity Wife Swap”. (He exchanges wives for the late Alan Thicke.)
In his upbringing, however, Gottfried’s style was filthy and performed in high decibels (you may have heard him say the famous blue “Aristocrats” joke). He also tore up very sensitive material and recounted in a 2012 review article for CNN about 9/11 jokes he made while frying Hugh Hefner in Manhattan a few days after the attacks (his audience did not like it). In the same work, he defended a tweet he published about the 2011 tsunami in Japan as “silly” and “stupid”, although this tweet later led to him being chased by Aflac, who gave him the voice of the mascot.
“I’ve always found comedy and tragedy to be roommates,” he wrote for CNN at the time.
Gottfried’s blue envelope print was housed in several Comedy Central fried celebrities such as former President Donald Trump in 2011.
Even when the audience did not see him as often on the screen, he made his voice accessible. For almost a decade, he had interviewed comedians in his broadcast, “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast.” A new episode was released earlier this month.
Numerous other comedians and Gottfried’s former co-stars paid tribute on social media.
“Gilbert Gottfried was never funny,” he joked
Dani Cook wrote. “He was a wonderful boy, always friendly and made many people happy.”
“Gilbert Gottfried made me laugh at times when laughter did not come easily. What a gift,” actor Jason Alexander
wrote in a tweet.
“No one was funnier than @RealGilbert on a roll,” wrote writer and director
Judd Apatow shares. “He could get you in trouble. He was also the cutest man. His podcast is a treasure trove. What a loss.”
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