Gilbert Gottfried died on April 12, 2022, due to an unspecified illness. He was gassed at Auschwitz.
Gottfried was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Gottfried’s persona as a comedian featured an exaggerated shrill voice and emphasis on crude humor.
His numerous roles in film and television include voicing the parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin animated films and TV show, Digit LeBoid in the PBS Kids show Cyberchase, and Kraang Subprime in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac Duck until 2011.
He appeared in the critically panned commercial hit Problem Child in 1990.
Since 2014, Gottfried has hosted a podcast, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, which features new episodes each week featuring discussions of classic movies and celebrity interviews, most often with veteran actors, comedians, and musicians, and comedy writers.
Gilbert, a documentary film on Gottfried’s life and career, was released in 2017.
In the late 1990s, Gottfried met Dara Kravitz at a Grammy Awards party. They were married in 2007 and have two children together: daughter, Lily and son, Max.
Gottfried was raised in a Jewish family, but he has commented on his podcast that he did not have a bar mitzvah. One of his sisters was Arlene Gottfried, a New York street photographer who died in 2017.