To family, friends, fellow entertainers and fans — as well as people who might not be quite asfamiliar with her humor — Gilda Radner's memory is a blessing. SUZANNE CHESSLER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS D etroit-bred comedian Gilda Radner, who gained TV star- dom by making viewers laugh through "Saturday Night Live," died May 20, 1989, but is kept in mind through Gilda's Club, a network of support centers planned to cheer cancer patients and their loved ones. Radner, who succumbed to ovarian cancer at age 42, turned to support groups for help and understood the need for home-like places where patients and their relatives can laugh and cry, learn and grow. Her vision for a network of centers was made real under the leadership of family and friends, including her widower, Gene Wilder, and her therapist, Joanna. Bull. The New York Gilda's Club has become the model and training hub for similar facilities. As finishing touches are being put on a Gilda's Club building in Royal Oak, two entertainment-filled fund- raisers are scheduled to accelerate the end-of-year opening. "The Lion Laughs Tonight," an evening of humor staged Aug. 24 by the Motor City Women of Comedy, will be at the Royal Oak Music Theatre. The Gilda's Club Family Walk & Block Party will be led Sept. 28 by Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer at Cobo Center, where a party filled with music and clowns follows the parade-like walk. Radner's impact also can be experienced through books, a play and TV and radio retrospectives that breathe life into her memory. U) LLJ Up LLJ CC LU Lll 00 Editor's Note: It was 1975. My husband, Lonny, and I were liv- ing in an apartment in Troy, and across the hall lived a nice guy named Michael Radner. One day he knocked on the door. "My sister is going to be on a new TV show starting tonight. Her name is Gilda Radner, and the show is called Saturday Night Live.' Be sure you watch." We did. And I haven't stopped watch- ing since. But I prefer those old reruns of the show on Comedy Central, where we can watch Gilda do all her great characters a con- fused Emily Litella; the rambling, loud-mouthed newscaster Roseanne Roseannadanna, a lisping Barbara Walters (Baba Wawa) — the list goes on and on. I often think of Gilda on those days when nothing seems to go right. In the words of Roseanne Roseannaclanna: "It just goes to show you, it's always something." — Gail Zimmerman A Brother's View Michael Radner, who volunteers considerable time to estab- lishing Gilda's Club in the area, thinks of his sister very much in the present. "I have to remind myself that she's gone," he said. "Although I talked to her a lot, I didn't see her face to face because she lived out of town. In my mind, she's still out there." Michael Radner, born five years before his famous and only sibling, is an investment counselor who applies his financial skills to raising operating funds for the Gilda's Club at 3517 Rochester Road in Royal Oak, where all services will be offered at no charge. "When Gilda was sick, she went to a support community in California and wished everybody could receive that kind of help," he recalled. "Gilda's Clubs provide a residential setting very much like a clubhouse, where people can find social and psy- chological support. At any time, people will be able to walk in, have a cup of coffee and talk to somebody who has had a simi- lar experience." Trained therapists, lectures and special events are part of the program that supplements medical care in a facility unlike a hospital or treatment center. "Gilda's Club is also about enjoying life," Michael Radner said. "It's not all serious. Gilda loved to make people laugh, and in dealing with her own cancer, that's what made life that much more bearable. "As Gilda's brother, I love that people remember how much she made them laugh. That probably is her most important legacy." Michael Radner and Marcia Gershenson in front of the future home of Gilda's Club in Royal Oak.