# Gilda Radner

Source: https://onco.cc/people/gilda-radner/  
OnCo record `gilda-radner` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

The Saturday Night Live star wrote about her ovarian cancer in It's Always Something and died at 42 in 1989. Her name lives on in Gilda's Club and the familial ovarian cancer registry at Roswell Park.

## Summary

Gilda Radner (1946-1989), one of the original cast of Saturday Night Live, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986 after months of symptoms that were not investigated. Her memoir It's Always Something, published weeks after her death on 20 May 1989, described treatment, remission and relapse with the frankness that made her famous. Her husband Gene Wilder and her psychotherapist Joanna Bull founded Gilda's Club in 1991, offering free psychosocial support to anyone affected by cancer, now part of the Cancer Support Community. Her family history of ovarian cancer led to the renaming of the familial ovarian cancer registry at Roswell Park as the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry, one of the earliest resources for studying inherited ovarian cancer risk.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Tags: public-figure; patient
- Role: Comedian whose ovarian cancer inspired Gilda's Club and a hereditary cancer registry
- Specialisms: Ovarian cancer; Hereditary cancer; Psychosocial support

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilda_Radner
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilda_Radner
- Cancer Support Community (Gilda's Club): https://www.cancersupportcommunity.org/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Ovarian cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/ovarian/)
- technologies: [Germline (hereditary) testing](https://onco.cc/technologies/germline-testing/), [Psycho-oncology and distress screening](https://onco.cc/technologies/psycho-oncology/)
- institutions: [Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center](https://onco.cc/institutions/roswell-park/)
- terms: [Hereditary cancer syndromes](https://onco.cc/terms/hereditary-cancer-syndromes/), [High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC)](https://onco.cc/terms/hgsoc/)
- bottlenecks: [Inherited risk is mostly unidentified](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-hereditary-risk/), [The hardest cancers are found late](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-early-detection/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/gilda-radner.json