Coca, Imogene Fernandez de

▪ 2002

      American actress and comedian (b. Nov. 18, 1908, Philadelphia, Pa.—d. June 2, 2001, Westport, Conn.), employed her expressive, elastic face—enhanced by saucer eyes and a huge smile—as well as her energetic physicality and improvisational abilities to great effect, most notably in skits with comedian Sid Caesar on live television during American TV's Golden Age. For the five years from 1949 to 1954, their acts—lampooning everything from opera, ballet, and movies to everyday life and marriage (via their husband-and-wife team “The Hickenloopers”)—brought 90 minutes of hilarity weekly to the Saturday-night viewing public and set the standard for TV comedy. The daughter of professional performers, Coca began piano lessons at age 5, singing lessons at 6, and dance lessons at 7, and by the time she was 11, she was working in vaudeville. Her Broadway debut came in 1925 in the chorus of the short-run When You Smile, and after appearances in a variety of shows, she got her lucky break. While rehearsing in a cold theatre, Coca donned a massively oversized coat and began to clown around with some other cast members. The producer added her bit to the show, New Faces of 1934, and Coca caught the attention of both the critics and the public. Performances at summer vacation resorts and in such Broadway shows as New Faces of 1936 and The Straw Hat Revue (1939) followed, but it was 10 years later, when she was paired with Caesar on the TV show Admiral Broadway Revue, that she finally achieved stardom. The pairing lasted through 160 editions of the show that succeeded it, Your Show of Shows. Coca won the Emmy Award in 1951 for her work on that program. She later starred in her own half-hour TV show, The Imogene Coca Show, for a season and appeared in nightclubs, TV specials, films, including Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963), and Broadway plays, including On the Twentieth Century (1979).

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