Those unfamiliar with Gilbert Gottfried, the comedian and actor who has died aged 67 of a rare form of muscular dystrophy, would instantly recognise his voice, shrill, high-pitched and grating. It was the voice of Iago the parrot in the movie Aladdin, or Mr Mxyzptlk, Superman’s trickster nemesis, or Kraang Subprime in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series. Putting a face to the voice, they might recall his desperately conniving corrupt accountant Sid Bernstein in Beverly Hills Cop 2.
While Gottfried’s voice made him a family favourite, it was also part of the character of a tasteless, often profane, stand-up comic. Only 5ft 5in (1.65 metres) tall, with a frail-seeming body and large head, performing with an exaggerated squint, his act resembled a precocious child’s tantrum: as audiences recoiled from a touchy joke, elaborated in ever more flowery language, the voice got louder, more insistent. Then he might stop to deconstruct what he was doing: “Logically, this doesn’t make sense,” he would yell, “but it’s a joke!!”
