Madeline Kahn

She was survived by her husband (John Hansbury), mother (Paula Kahn), brother (Jeffrey Kahn), and niece (Eliza Kahn). She is interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. She was only 57 years old. Dororthy Lamour died at her home in North Hollywood, California at the age of 81. In the final years of her life, she played a major role on the sitcom Cosby and voiced Gypsy the moth in A Bug's Life, before succumbing to ovarian cancer on December 3, 1999. Some of Dorothy Lamour's other notable films include The Hurricane (1937), Disputed Passage (1939), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), Dixie (1943), and On Our Merry Way (1948). At the end of her career, she returned to the stage and won a Tony Award for her role in The Sisters Rosensweig, a play by Wendy Wasserstein. She appeared in a series of road movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in the 1940s and 1950s.

After her success in Brooks's films, she played in a number of less successful films in the 1980s. While she first achieved stardom as a sex symbol, Lamour also showed talent as both a comic and dramatic actress. Kahn's roles were primarily comedic rather than dramatic. She wore a sarong, which would become associated with her, and captivated many viewers with her sensuous exotic attractive appearance. For her work in Paper Moon and Blazing Saddles, the young comedienne received nominations for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The role that made her a star was Ulah (a sort of female Tarzan) in The Jungle Princess (1936). The final three films were all directed by Mel Brooks, who many Hollywood observers claimed was able to bring out the best of Kahn's comic talents. In 1936 she moved to Hollywood and began appearing regularly in films for Paramount Pictures, first in bit parts.

Her most famous roles followed in the 1970s: she appeared in What's Up, Doc? (1972), Paper Moon (1973), Young Frankenstein (1974), Blazing Saddles (1974), and High Anxiety (1977). She also sang on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show. She debuted in the movies that same year with a role in De Düva: The Dove. She got a job singing with the band of Herbie Kay, who became her first husband. In 1968, she earned her first break on Broadway with New Faces of 1968 and then performed her first lead role in the musical Candide. After winning the title of Miss New Orleans in a beauty pageant she moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1931, hoping to become a professional singer. Just before adopting the professional name of Madeline Kahn (Kahn was her stepfather's last name), she made her stage debut as a chorus girl in a revival of Kiss Me Kate which led her to join the Actors' Equity. Lamour's birth name was Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton; Lamour came from the name of her step-father.

Kahn began auditioning for professional acting roles shortly after her graduation from Hofstra; on the side, she briefly taught public school in Levittown, NY. Dorothy Lamour (December 10, 1914 - September 22, 1996) was a motion picture actress, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, died in Hollywood, California. After changing her major a number of times, Kahn graduated in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy. "Glamour is just sex that got civilized.". At Hofstra, she studied music, drama, and speech therapy and also performed in several campus productions. In 1960, she graduated from the Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, NY where she earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University.

Ironically, Kahn soon began acting herself and performed in a number of school productions. In 1948, Kahn was sent to a progressive boarding school in Pennsylvania and stayed there until 1952. During that time, her mother pursued her ambition as an actress. A few years later, her mother remarried and this union gave Kahn two half-siblings (Jeffrey and Robyn). After the divorce was finalized, Kahn and her mother moved to New York City.

Although Kahn's parents were high-school sweethearts, they divorced when she was only two years old. Her mother, Paula, was just 17 when Kahn was born. She was born on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts as Madeline Gail Wolfson. Madeline Kahn was an actress of movie, television, and theatre.

Cosby - 1996. London Suite - 1996. New York News - 1995. For Richer, for Poorer - 1992.

Lucky Luke - 1991. Welcome to the Monkey House - 1991. President - 1987. Mr.

Blazing Saddles - 1974. Frankweiler - 1973. Basil E. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs.