Judy Tenuta, a popular manga series that became popular throughout the 1980s, presents her crazy, ruthless comedy while dressing up in outlandish costumes, playing the accordion, and anointing herself “Female”. cupid,” passed away Thursday in Los Angeles. She is 72 years old.
Her longtime manager, Roger Paul, said the cause was ovarian cancer.
Ms. Tenuta broke through at a time when the comedy industry was almost exclusively male and was the first female comic to win the “Best Comedy Actress” award at the 1988 American Comedy Awards. , according to a biography on her official website. She was also nominated for two Emmy Awards for her comedy album, “Attention Butt-Pirates & Lesbetarians!” and “In the Goddess we believe in.”
“Judy’s Rise Up is appropriately described as a dramatic, horror comedy” Follow her list of credits on her official website. “She recently became an ordained minister and converted her audience to her signature religion, ‘Judaism’.”
The comedian became nationally known with a 1987 HBO comedy special, “Women of the Night,” in which she starred alongside Ellen DeGeneres, Rita Rudner, and Paula Poundstone.
Ms. Tenuta, who also calls herself “Aphrodite of the Accordion,” has appeared on hundreds of talk shows such as “The View,” “Late Night With David Letterman,” “Larry King Live,” “Entertainment Tonight.” and “Liberation Comics. ”
Stephen Holden, written in The New York Times in February 1988described her as one of the “fastest-growing comic books about women” and compared her to Joan Rivers and Roseanne Barr.
“While Ms. Tenuta’s gradations have a fierce edge, they are delivered by a grotesquely crafted character who, wearing a tattered evening gown, speaks in raspy growls. singing and screaming, holding the accordion and greeting the audience, ‘Hello, pigs’, Mr. Holden wrote.
In 1989, she was featured on HBO’s “One Night Stand,” and she also had a 1991 Showtime special called “Worship Me, Pigs.”
She often performed with a fellow accordion player, Weird Al Yankovic, including on the short-lived “Weird Al Show” in 1997.
Ms. Tenuta voices characters in a number of adult cartoons, including “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” “Duckman” and “Johnny Bravo.”
Judy Tenuta was born on November 7, 1949 in Oak Park, Ill., in Johanna and Caesar. Ms. Tenuta grew up in a large family with seven brothers and a sister in a strict Catholic family, according to The Chicago Tribune.
She is survived by her partner, Vern Pang, several brothers and a sister.
“I always feel like a goddess of love,” she told the newspaper in 1992. “I would say to my brothers, ‘Kiss my hands and kiss my feet,’ and they would do it. Of course I had to clean their room – great! “
She is often derisive about revealing her age publicly, saying she doesn’t want to feel “restricted”.
“When you are a goddess, you are eternal,” Ms. Tenuta told The Tribune. “I don’t want women to feel limited by age. As soon as someone found out you were chronologically aged, they labeled you. “
