I grew up staying up late on weekend nights and watching 'Saturday Night Live." I adored Gilda Radner. She was pretty, funny and often vulnerable. Too vulnerable, as it turns out. Gilda died after a three year battle with ovarian cancer in 1989 when she was just 42; I was 19 years old.

I read her book about her battle with cancer, "It's Always Something," an amazingly funny and touchingly sad book, just before she died. In 1997 the Lucille Lortel Theater in Greenwich Village produced Alan Zweibel's play about Gilda called "Bunny, Bunny." My old friend Scott Silvian worked on the sound for the show and I was privileged to see the poignant and hilarious play staring Paula Cale several times.

I've walked by the little red door on West Houston Street a few times on my way to the Film Forum, never realizing that I would once again turn to Gilda in some way for laughter and tears.