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Imogene Coca
Philadelphia, 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 vaud…
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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.
Filmography
Movies and shows, newest first
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2018
Mel Brooks: Unwrapped
Movie Self (archive footage)
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2012
In the Beginning: The Caesar Years
Movie Self
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1999
Television: The First Fifty Years
Movie Self (archive footage)
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1996
Caesar's Writers
Movie Self (archive footage)
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1996
Hollywood: The Movie
Movie Roxy
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1990
Bobby's World
TV show
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1989
Buy & Cell
Movie Reggie's Mother
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1988
Monsters
TV show The Old Woman
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1987
The Little Match Girl
Movie Self - Host
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1986
Papa Was a Preacher
Movie Missy B
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1985
Alice in Wonderland
TV show Cook
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1985
Moonlighting
TV show Clara DiPesto
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1984
Nothing Lasts Forever
Movie Daisy Schackman
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1983
National Lampoon's Vacation
Movie Aunt Edna
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1983
Reading Rainbow
TV show Self - Narrator (voice)
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1983
Mama's Family
TV show
More credits
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1981
Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner
Movie Molly - Bag Lady
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1981
The Return of the Beverly Hillbillies
Movie Granny's Maw
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1980
The Big Show
TV show Self
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1979
Trapper John, M.D.
TV show
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1978
A Special Sesame Street Christmas
Movie Self
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1978
Rabbit Test
Movie Madam Marie
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1975
Too Easy to Kill
Movie Mrs. Bradshaw
- 1973
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1972
The Emperor's New Clothes
Movie Princess Jane Klockenlocher (voice)
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1970
Night Gallery
TV show Wife (segment "The Merciful")
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1969
Love, American Style
TV show Doctor's wife
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1969
The Brady Bunch
TV show
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1967
The Carol Burnett Show
TV show Self - Guest
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1966
It's About Time
TV show Shad
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1964
Bewitched
TV show
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1964
The Hollywood Palace
TV show Self
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1963
The Sound of Laughter
Movie Miss Klutz (Ballerina)
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1963
Under the Yum Yum Tree
Movie Dorkus Murphy
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1963
The Danny Kaye Show
TV show Self
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1963
Grindl
TV show Grindl
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1963
Promises! Promises!
Movie Woman Under Hair Dryer (uncredited)
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1962
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
TV show Self
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1962
The Merv Griffin Show
TV show Self
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1961
The Mike Douglas Show
TV show Self
