Anecdotes

According to Mel Brooks, she was - contrary to her screen image - quite shy and reserved in real life.

She improvised the now infamous "flames, flames on the side of my face" speech in Cluedo (1985).

Her performance as Lili von Shtupp in Le shérif est en prison (1974) is ranked #74 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. (2006)

Operatically trained singer.

She has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Le shérif est en prison (1974), Frankenstein junior (1974), and Les Muppets : Ça c'est du cinéma ! (1979).

Moved to New York with her mother, who wanted to pursue a singing career, when she was around five years old. Attended the Manumit School in New York from 1948 to 1953.

Her last appearance was on a talk show when, having terminal cancer and with no small degree of irony, she sang the number from Le shérif est en prison (1974), "I'm So Tired".

Graduated third in her class in 1960 from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village, New York (where she was raised) and from Hofstra University (which she attended on a drama scholarship). Held a degree in speech therapy and reportedly initially intended to become a teacher.

She graduated from Hofstra University on a drama scholarship with a degree in speech therapy and received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Boston Conservatory. (1964)

Starred in the original Broadway production of "On the Twentieth Century" but departed from the show after nine weeks due to damage to her vocal cords. (1978)

Nominated for the Tony Award for Actress in a Play/Comedy for "Born Yesterday". (1989)

She was cremated and her ashes were given to family and friends.

Won the Tony Award for Actress in a Drama for "The Sisters Rosensweig". (1993)

Nominated for the Tony Award for Actress in a Musical for "On the Twentieth Century". (1978)

She won a People's Choice Award for her television series, "Oh Madeleine", and a 1987 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming for Wanted: The Perfect Guy (1986). She won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Circle awards in 1993 for her performance in "The Sisters Rosensweig". She had three other Tony nominations: "In the Boom, Boom Room" (1974), "On the Twentieth Century" (1978), and "Born Yesterday" (1989).

Madeline Kahn and Gilda Radner both starred on the short-lived sitcom, First Family, in 1980. Both stars passed away from ovarian cancer; Radner in 1989 and Kahn in 1999.

Nominated for the Tony Award for Actress in a Drama for "Boom Boom Room". (1974)

Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Trixie Delight in La barbe à papa (1973).

She joined a six-person comedy revue at the nightclub "Upstairs at the Downstairs".

Daughter of Paula Kahn (born Freda Goldberg) and Bernard Wolfson (both Ashkenazi Jews). Wife of John Hansbury. Older half-sister of Jeffrey Kahn and Robyn Kahn. Aunt of Eliza Kahn. Madeline Kahn's mother was 18 and her father was 20 when she was born. The couple had been married for a little over a year before she was born, and divorced when she was two years old.

After her death a bench was erected in Central Park in her honor.

Was friends with, among others, Bill Cosby and Audra McDonald.

After her mother married her stepfather Hiller Kahn,they resided at 199-04 Romeo Court in Holliswood, Queens, New York.

Her birth parents died in June 2012, exactly five days apart.