Photo by Ann Clifford/LIFE Images
TODAY’S THE DAY to wish a fond “Happy Birthday” to one of my favorite actresses and comediennes, the breathtakingly funny Gilda Radner, who made her mark on Saturday Night Live with characters like the brassy newscaster Rosanne Rosannadanna and the goofy, geeky fiancée of Bill Murray, Emily Litela. Gilda’s timing and fearlessness were unparalleled, but her funny was also full of wisdom.
She always struck me as a true sister: After all, who else could say, “I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they’re the first to be rescued off sinking ships.” She left all too soon when she died of ovarian cancer 20 years ago.
If you don’t know her particular brand of genius, do yourself a favor and check it out–it’s available on DVD.
Even while struggling through years of treatment, Gilda never seemed to lose her humor or her perspective. As she put it, “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.”
Amen, sister.
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First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Gilda always held a special place for me. Not only did she crack me up (I loved Roseanne and Emily), but she died of ovarian cancer the same summer that my sister died of the same.
I forgot that it hass been 20 years, but it has…
Hi, Becky. Oh, my. Yes, we’ve been so deeply moved by your story of your sister elsewhere on TSP. It is astonishing, isn’t it, how memory wires together events, fact and emotion so that they can never again be unwelded, isn’t it? Something we explore a great deal here on TSP, I am humbled by the reminder of it here. Thank you.