American comedian Rodney Dangerfield has died at the age of 82.
Dangerfield died at the UCLA Medical Centre on Tuesday where he had undergone heart valve replacement surgery on August 25th.
The goggle-eyed veteran Las Vegas headliner and TV variety-show fixture was famed for his self-deprecating one-liners and signature phrase "I can't get no respect."
He became a pop culture sensation in middle age with a string of broad film comedies starting with Caddyshackin 1980.
Later film roles included the coach of a girl's soccer team in Ladybugs(1992), an abusive father in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers(1994), and a tabloid TV show reporter in Meet Wally Sparks(1997).
Although his initial forays into show business fizzled, Dangerfield successfully restarted his career as a comedian in his forties.
Opening one of America's first comedy clubs - the now-famous Dangerfield's in Manhattan - he went on to become a national sensation in his own right and helped launch the careers of such comics as Jim Carrey and Jerry Seinfeld.
A native of New York's Long Island, Dangerfield had endured a series of health problems and surgeries in recent years, including double-bypass heart surgery in March 2000 and an operation three months later to correct an aneurysm. He also suffered a mild heart attack in November 2001. Last spring, he underwent brain surgery.
A month later, Dangerfield greeted reporters at the hospital dressed in a sports shirt and Bermuda shorts and declared, "My brain is OK. I feel like a new man." Later, responding to a medical question, he answered: "Ask me about things I'm familiar with, like drugs or prostitution."