Imogene Coca

Known for ActingBorn 1908-11-18Died 2001-06-02Philadelphia, 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.Read more

Movies & web series

Caesar's Writers

The Big Show

Reading Rainbow

Ten from Your Show of Shows

Bewitched

The Imogene Coca Show

Night Gallery

The Carol Burnett Show

Moonlighting

Mama's Family

Danger

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

Monsters

National Lampoon's Vacation

Bobby's World

Your Show of Shows

Alice in Wonderland

The Danny Kaye Show

Mel Brooks: Unwrapped

What's My Line?

The Bob Hope Show

A Special Sesame Street Christmas

The Colgate Comedy Hour

The Brady Bunch

Bashful Ballerina

General Electric Theater

Trapper John, M.D.

The Ed Sullivan Show

The Emperor's New Clothes

The Merv Griffin Show

Nothing Lasts Forever

Shirley Temple's Storybook

This Is Your Life

Love, American Style

The Steve Allen Show

Under the Yum Yum Tree

Grindl

The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies

It's About Time

Buy & Cell

The Mike Douglas Show

Dime a Dance

Papa Was a Preacher

Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner

The Hollywood Palace

The Sound of Laughter

Hollywood: The Movie

Promises! Promises!