Mad at God: The Brilliant Life & Tragic Death of Madeline Kahn

Have you ever missed someone you never met?  Felt a genuine longing for them in your soul in a way that's impossible to describe?  That's the way I feel about Madeline Kahn.  Maybe it's all the time indoors this winter or the COVID-induced melancholy, but I've fallen deep into a Madeline Kahn rabbithole as of late.  I've had dreams of her 4 out of 7 nights this week which is truly abnormal for me, even with one of my obsessions.  (If you're autistic you know what I mean by "obsession").  I'll spare you the details and get on with the article.  

Madeline Gail Wolfson was born in 1942 to Bernard Wolfson and Paula Goldberg in Boston.  Her father left for good while she was sick with chickenpox, which baby Maddie attributed to being "ugly" thus causing lifelong insecurities about her appearance.  In reality he'd left because her mother was impossible to deal with, as did her stepfather Hiller Kahn from whom she took her last name later on.  (Kahn is a German name that means "small boat" and a Germanized form of the Jewish surname "Cohen").  These early abandonments caused Madeline to reject marriage until the last months of her life.  

High school yearbook photo 💜

Paula dumped 5-year-old Madeline in a progressive boarding school after a sudden manic move to New York to pursue her own acting career, worsening her abandonment issues.  Despite her mom's foul behavior, Madeline felt obligated to take care of her due to a lack of strong family connections & general trust issues.  Her mother said after her death:  "If Madeline hadn't been so talented, I would've ignored her."  And it's true:  she was probably one of the most multi-talented stars to ever grace Broadway & Hollywood stages.  She could sing & dance, play piano, was hilarious but could turn serious on a dime, had an uncanny ability to improvise lines that were better than anything written in the script, was scary smart & of course was a stunner.  And she balanced it all perfectly, never letting her looks overshadow her talents or selling herself short based on the perverse desires of exploitative Hollywood directors.  

Mother Paula paid for young Maddie's piano lessons and personally coached her in opera singing and then had the nerve to be jealous of her success as a performer while happily draining her of money for her entire adult life.  Talk about mixed messages.  She pressured her daughter to support her financially and even sued her later in life for money after Madeline got her roles as an extra on SNL, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood & paying for Paula's own one-woman show.  Their relationship was the classic narcissistic mother-scapegoat daughter dynamic that seems to be so disturbingly common among famous women.  Karen Carpenter, Mariah Carey, Gilda Radner & Judy Garland also suffered similarly at the hands of their controlling, emotionally abusive moms.  Something something, pressure makes diamonds...  

The Performer vs. The Person

Everyone remembers Madeline Kahn for her more popular roles in movies like Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles & Paper Moon so I'll skip over those.  If you're not familiar I suggest coming out from under your rock and checking out those movies RIGHT NOW.  Even with my short attention span I've watched them from beginning to end many times so there's no excuse for you not to have seen them.  Do it.  Now.  They're classics for a reason.  Madeline was in her prime during the '70s & these movies capture the essence of her talents so perfectly.  And of course there's Clue from 1985 which is also iconic for her improvised "Flames, flames on the side of my face!" line.  She's also adorable in "Sesame Street" & The Muppet Movie, the latter of which starred Carol Kane, another one of my favorites.  Go go go.  

Despite her kooky, side-splitting roles, Madeline's offstage personality was described as "mercurial".  Some of her co-stars called her a genius and others said she was impossible to work with, such as cast members of the Broadway play On The 20th Century from which she was fired in 1978 after a short but memorable run.  There were rumors of cocaine abuse but the truth was much more mundane:  one of her co-stars was having an affair with her & it had gone bad, triggering panic attacks onstage.  Also, her voice was being strained by the demanding schedule & she was not getting along with the director.  In other words, this particular play was a bad fit all around but there's zero evidence she was ever on drugs.  Zero.  In fact, cocaine of all substances is the least likely choice due to her extreme anxiety & high-strung nature.  Take it from a long-term polydrug user:  Madeline Kahn shows no signs of having ever been a hard drug user from what I can see.  She was sexually harassed & verbally abused by co-star Danny Kaye in the play Two By Two however.  More unaddressed trauma to add to the pile. 

It's definitely clear that her mood and confidence swung wildly from day to day & appearance to appearance.  She disliked going on the talkshow circuit to promote her projects and was often visibly uncomfortable doing so.  One of her more awkward appearances is her spot on "Vicki!" in which she said it was "nobody's business" what went on behind the scenes of "Cosby," awkwardly hummed along to a song she was put on the spot to sing & then refused to do Pilates with one of the other guests because she "doesn't exercise in front of people" (all understandable by the way).  Contrast this with her effervescent appearance on the Rosie O'Donnell Show where she sang a charming song & kept the audience in stitches the whole time.  At other times she left everyone scratching their heads, telling long rambling stories with no clear ending that even confused the hosts (Dick Cavett Show 1970; David Letterman 1983).

Madeline Kahn on Dick Cavett Show (1970)

As someone who feels more comfortable on stage playing other people than being myself, I can definitely relate.  Madeline often thought audiences were laughing AT her rather than with her and struggled to be taken seriously.  This makes sense when you consider that she hadn't set out to be an actress, let alone a comedic actress--her degree was in speech therapy with a minor in education.  And her first love was music.  She truly was a brilliant star but with deep insecurities and a hypersensitivity to criticism, what we might call today "rejection-sensitivity dysphoria".  And it's no wonder, what with the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother.  That's to say nothing of the way women were and still are treated in Hollywood.  

Madeline worked constantly throughout the years, often taking jobs that were well below her caliber of talent just to pay the bills.  Her mother's bills, to be precise.  In many instances her talents superseded the projects she appeared in and she knew it.  She once said:  "I have appeared in crap...but I never treat it as such.  Never!"  She appeared in a string of bad shows & movies after her 1978 Broadway appearance in On the 20th Century, some of which included the ill-fated '80s sitcom "Oh Madeline" which lasted one season; a pilot episode of an ABC show called "Chameleon" which was considerably better but never aired & a boring-as-hell TV series called "Mr. President" on Fox.  There were also some Beef, Diet Coke & Light Beer commercials in the mix during this era.  

Unhand her, Bill. 

And then her career hit a resurgence in the '90s:  she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1993 for her role in The Sisters Rosensweig; hosted SNL for the 3rd time in '95 (where she appeared with my all-time favorite cast of Cheri Oteri, Will Ferrell & Molly Shannon), provided the voice for Gypsy in A Bug's Life and starred in one of her own personal favorite projects:  "Cosby".  Watching her play off friend Phylicia Rashad & improvise with Bill, making them crack up for real is delightful no matter how you feel about Bill Cosby as a person.  She absolutely nailed this role. 

Unfortunately it would be one of her last.  

Last Days of Madeline Kahn

Madeline & Gilda

One of the most tragic ironies of Madeline's life was her friendship with funny lady Gilda Radner, who died at age 42 of ovarian cancer.  Madeline would attend ovarian cancer events throughout her life in her name, such as this one for Gilda's Club in 1995.  Maddie died from the same disease 10 years after her dear friend.  

After reading Gilda's book I did some research on this hideous disease & learned that there are some risk factors that both women shared:  Jewish ancestry & nulliparity (never having children) being two of them.  The BRCA gene mutation that is responsible for the inherited form of ovarian and breast cancers is more common in Ashkenazi Jewish women.  (Both Gilda & Madeline are Jewish & never had children).  Further increasing Madeline's risk was the loss of her biological father Bernard Wolfson to lung cancer plus her mom's development of colon cancer.  This general presence of cancer in the family is bad enough, but her official biography by Bill Madison claims she specifically had both the BRCA 1 & 2 mutations which are the ones that predispose to ovarian cancer.  Gilda was thought to have this mutation as well, as her mom was a breast cancer survivor and she had multiple family members who had ovarian and breast cancers. 

Obviously these risk factors do not mean someone is 100% destined to get cancer but they might prompt one to get screened for the BRCA gene mutation and, if positive, receive genetic counseling so they can make the best decision for themselves.  Frequent screenings as well as preventative mastectomy & hysterectomy can allow women to stay one step ahead of the disease if they carry the mutation.  Unfortunately this was not an option when Gilda & Madeline were alive so they didn't have that opportunity.  

More information on this topic can be found here.  

Madeline fought the disease valiantly with her longtime partner John Hansbury by her side, who she married in October 1999, and the support of her loved ones while continuing to work until August of that year (scratch that:  she did voice work only five days before her death, providing the voice for "Little Bill" character Mrs. Shapiro on Bill Cosby's animated series).  She underwent three rounds of chemotherapy, had three surgeries and some experimental treatment.  Her final movie was an indie film called Judy Berlin that she starred in just 11 months before her death.  She announced to the public that she was sick in November & called for awareness in the hopes of finding an effective means of early diagnosis.  This heartbreaking article from Star Magazine in November 1999 describes her final days in more detail than I've seen elsewhere.

And then she was gone.  On December 3, 1999, Madeline Kahn exited this earthly plane at the age of 57.   

Rest peacefully, angel.

As untimely & unfair as her death is, it brings me a little comfort that she was in a long-term relationship with a wonderfully supportive man & was working on her favorite project ("Cosby") at the time of her passing.  But it also makes it that much sadder:  She had no business leaving us when she was so happy & had so much more to give (and receive).  And it sounds like her last days were incredibly painful.  Cancer & its treatments are brutal.  Ovarian cancer that's progressed beyond the ovaries has only a 20% five-year survival rate and is notoriously difficult to detect before it's escaped the ovaries.  Madeline's cancer was in Stage 3 by the time it was discovered and her symptoms were very vague, which is typical.  

Director Eric Mendelsohn who worked with Madeline on her last film Judy Berlin had this to say about their relationship :

"That's what's so completely devastating. She was just about to show people; this was the first low-budget picture she had ever been involved in, and she was a very careful, very defended woman. The greatest gift Madeline gave me was, first, telling me she'd be in the movie, and second, two weeks before she died, telling me how proud she was of this film, and how much joy it had given her in the darkest year of her life. And I will never get another compliment as great or as timely as that."

If there is a God, He must have a twisted sense of humor.  Putting a sweet soul like Madeline through a life of emotional abuse by one parent, abandonment by the other & then cutting her life short at what she probably felt was her peak (or at least a very sweet spot) is undeniably cruel.  This is definitely one of those "life's not fair-y" tales.  She left the world with so much laughter & beauty.  What did we give her?  What is the lesson here?  Is there one? 

Paula continued living on the money her daughter left her for the rest of her life, which ended in 2012.  She was 88.  

More proof that only the good die young.