Imogene Coca

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In addition to vaudeville cabaret theater and television Imogene Coca appeared in film voiced children's cartoons and was even featured in an MTV video by a New Wave band working well into her 80s. She won the second-ever Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series in 1951 and was nominated for four other Emmys for her work in the show. The 90-minute show was aired live on NBC every Saturday night in prime time.

Starting out in vaudeville as a child acrobat Imogene Coca studied ballet and wiImogene Cocad to have a serious career in music and dance graduating to decades of stage musical revues cabaret and summer stock. 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. Finally in her 40s Imogene Coca began a celebrated career as a comedian in television starring in six series and guesting on successful television programs from the 1940s to the 1990s.