US comic has brain surgery

US comic has brain surgery

Dangerfield (centre) suffered a heart attack on his 80th birthday

American comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield has had a rare brain bypass to prepare his weakened heart for a valve replacement.

Dangerfield, 81, was the star of hit 1980s comedy films like Caddyshack and Back to School, but suffered a mild heart attack in 2001.

The eight-hour operation, which took place at the University of California's Los Angeles medical centre on Tuesday, was to improve his blood flow.

"It's all being done because he does have to have heart valve replacement surgery," his publicist Kevin Sasaki said.

"He needs to have his blood flow going for that."

Dangerfield, who became known as the comic who complained of getting "no respect", is expected to take 10 days to recover.

The heart valve surgery is planned for about three weeks after that, Mr Sasaki said.

In a statement, Dangerfield said: "After this repair work, I'll be as good as new, but right now I know I'm in rough shape.

"I joined a weightlifting class... they started me with helium balloons."

Film success

The star also had double heart bypass surgery in 1999.

Tuesday's surgery took place on the same day that his latest film, The Fourth Tenor, was released on video.

Born in 1921 in New York, Dangerfield appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Tonight Show and the Dean Martin Show in the 1960s and 70s.

But he became a bigger star with the 1980 film Caddyshack, with Chevy Chase, in which he played an obnoxious rich golfer.

That was followed by Easy Money in 1983 and 1986's Back to School, one of the first films to take $100m at the box office.

His turned to dramatic roles as the abusive father of Juliette Lewis's serial killer character in Natural Born Killers in 1994.