Gilda's Story

Gilda’s Club is named in honour of Gilda Radner, an original member of the Saturday Night Live cast who reclaimed her gift of laughter and feeling of control when she joined with others who had cancer. Her dream was to create a community for people with cancer and their families and friends where they could engage in life-enriching activities, find inspiration and share the wisdom of experience while learning strategies for living with cancer.

  In her best-selling book "It's Always Something", Gilda wrote about her experience of living with cancer.  As Gilda said, "Cancer is probably the most unfunny thing in the world, but I'm a comedienne and even cancer couldn't stop me from seeing humor in what I went through".   She spoke of establishing such a support community in New York when she felt better and said, "There should be a thousand of them."    This dream became a reality when Joanna Bull, Gilda Radner’s cancer psychotherapist was approached by Gilda’s husband, Gene Wilder and other friends of Gilda to design a program and create a place where people living with cancer and their families and friends could come for free emotional and social support.   The first Gilda’s Club, including a training centre, opened its signature red door in New York City in 1995. Since that time, additional clubhouses have opened in larger cities (Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Toronto), smaller cities (Fort Lauderdale, Quad Cities, Hackensack, Rochester) and several points in between (Nashville, Grand Rapids, White Plains). Barrie will be the second clubhouse open in Canada with ten others in the planning stages throughout North America.   Although Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer in 1989, her spirit lives on in every Gilda’s Club, where members join with other “experts” at living with cancer to give and receive the benefits of love and laughter through the unique Gilda’s Club program.