Imogene Coca: 1908-2001: Actress Biography - A Born Trouper, "pure Accident", Your Show Of Shows, Won A Tony
television remembered
Imogene Coca: 1908-2001: Actress.
Imogene Coca was best remembered as the elfin come-dienne with the incredibly flexible face who starred with Sid Caesar on television's Your Show of Shows. Her career spanned from the waning days of vaudeville through the comedy resorts of the Catskills and on through the beginnings of television, extending to a fondly remembered role as elderly Aunt Edna, strapped to the roof of a station wagon in National Lampoon's Vacation. Coca's greatest talent was subtle exaggeration; she could take a normal situation and just barely skew it, nudging it over the edge into hilarity.
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Coca was born in Philadelphia on November 18, 1908. The daughter of Josée (Joe) Fernandez de Coca, a prominent band leader and violinist, and Sadie Brady Coca, a dancer who "disappeared" each night in a magician's act, Coca was truly a 'born trouper'. She grew up accompanying her parents on the road, spending much of her time in the theaters where they per…
One day when Coca was rehearsing New Faces of 1934 at the Fulton Theater, it was so cold that she borrowed a coat from another performer in the show—Henry Fonda. To keep warm, Coca started jumping and dancing around, performing a mock strip-tease while bundled in the long wool overcoat. Producer Leonard Silliman saw her and immediately decided to put the comic dance into the show. At first,…
Producer Max Liebman was inspired to team Coca with another Taminent alumnus, Sid Caesar. They appeared together for the first time in 1949 for the premiere broadcast of NBC's Admiral Broadway Revue. The show did not last long, but the two were paired again in that autumn's new television hit, Your Show of Shows. The 90-minute show was performed live and included comedy sketches, son…
Coca was nominated for a 1978 Tony Award for her last Broadway appearance, playing a religious fanatic in the acclaimed On the Twentieth Century, and continued with the part on a national tour. Throughout the remainder of the 1970s and 1980s, she performed only sporadically in parts as diverse as Granny's "Maw" in The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies to the Cook in Alice in W…
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