Gilbert Gottfried, the actor and legendary stand-up comic known for his raw, scorched voice and crude jokes, has died. He was 67.
He died from recurrent ventricular tachycardia due to myotonic dystrophy type II, a disorder that affects the heart, his publicist and longtime friend Glenn Schwartz said in a statement.
He first came to national attention with frequent appearances on MTV in its early days and with a brief stint in the cast of Saturday Night Live in the 1980s.
Gottfried also did frequent voice work for children’s television and movies, most famously playing the parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin.
“Gilbert’s brand of humour was brash, shocking and frequently offensive, but the man behind the jokes was anything but,” Gottfried’s friend and podcast co-host Frank Santopadre said in a statement.
“Those who loved and him were fortunate enough to share his orbit knew a person who was sweet, sensitive, surprisingly shy and filled with a childlike sense of playfulness and wonder.”
AAP
