DANGERFIELD CLIMBED WAY TO GETTING RESPECT.

Byline: Phil Perrier

WHEN my Dad laughed really hard, his face turned bright red and tears rolled down his cheeks. Nobody made him laugh like Rodney.

Johnny Carson would introduce him, and out Rodney would come, jerking, twitching, yanking at his tie, a perpetual-motion machine of anxiety; sweating, eyes bulging. Rodney looked supremely uncomfortable as he belted out one-liners like missiles:

``I got in a cab, I told the driver to take me where the action is ... he took me to my house. ... Last night my wife told me to take out the trash. I said you take it out, you cooked it.''

Carson convulsed at his desk. The tears rolled down Dad's cheeks. My brother and I laughed till it hurt. All the while waiting, waiting and then, it would come. ``I'm tellin' ya', I don't get no respect, no respect at all.''

And the crowd went nuts.

It was what set Rodney apart, made him special. He led with his pain, his insecurity, his fear. After decades of struggling in small clubs and even years away from comedy, he came back and found his voice.

It was a voice that came from a deep place. Born Jacob Cohen, he grew up poor in Queens, New York. As a kid he worked at various jobs to help his divorced mother make ends meet. One job was as a delivery boy for a grocery store. In an interview, Rodney talked about going to school with kids during the day, then delivering food - via the back door - to their homes at night. ``I felt inferior to pretty much everyone.''

Following World War II, Rodney, then 19 and calling himself Jack Roy, began performing in the Catskills resorts for $12 a week. While contemporaries like Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Alan King and Lenny Bruce became huge stars, Jack Roy struggled, then eventually quit.

After years of selling paint and aluminum siding, he realized he would never be happy unless he performed. And so he came back.

The old Jack Roy was dead, and Rodney Dangerfield was born. A black suit, white shirt, red tie and an absurdly goyishe name, combined with the clearly defined persona of the eternal underdog.

It worked. Soon Rodney appeared on ``The Ed Sullivan Show,'' and began to take off. Seventy ``Tonight Show'' appearances, movies, beer commercials and sold-out shows in Las Vegas; the gamble paid off. Letting his feelings of inferiority show, spilling his guts on stage, connected with people on a visceral level.

He spoke to our inner Rodney. We all feel that we don't get enough respect, love, admiration. It was as if our worst fears and torments had a voice and a face and they were Rodney's.

``When I was a kid I couldn't find my parents, so I asked a cop to help me. He said, 'I don't know kid, there are so many places they can hide.'''

Rodney was 44 when he made his first major national TV appearance on ``The Ed Sullivan Show.'' After struggling for 25 years, he had made it. He never gave up on himself.

I'll always remember Rodney blasting out of that black-and-white screen; making those big fat tears roll down my Dad's face.

Thanks, Rodney.

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DANGERFIELD