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Gilbert Gottfried is known for his caustic humor. But he is a ‘soft person on the inside.’

Gilbert Gottfried has one of the most famous voices in modern American entertainment: the loud, exciting, unmistakable New York voice. That voice was his professional signature and weird calling card.

But that’s not exactly how he talks backstage.

Gottfried, who died on Tuesday after a long illness, was reported to have exaggerated his vocal style to make people laugh. Howard Stern caused a stir on the radio, once broadcasting a clip of a voicemail message from Gottfried. The voice on the line is almost unrecognizable.

He’s “much calmer and softer-spoken than he is on stage,” New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff wrote in a statement. Profile in 2013. Subject line: “Vulgarity’s abrasive master, but not at home.”

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“I did that for a long time, that one day you wake up and you go, Oh, this is what you deliver,” says Gottfried. The Miami New Times in 2017. “It’s like walking up to someone walking down the street and asking, ‘How did you develop that walkway?'”

If you grew up on Disney’s animated version of “Aladdin,” the truth about Gottfried’s trademark Squawk might surprise you. But all in all, Gottfried is a caustic artist that hides an inner core of sweetness.

Yes, Gottfried can be attacked happily. He was a “comedian’s comedian” and a lifelong provocateur. He launched a liner about national tragedy and other limited-looking topics with reckless abandon.

But Tuesday afternoon’s tributes are testament to an aspect of his personality that may have been hidden from the public or obscured by his zeal for commentary. no-frills society.

Frank Santopadre, Gottfried’s podcast co-host, said in a statement that Gottfried can be “rude, shocking and often offensive, but whoever is behind those jokes is whatever. .”

Santopadre added: “Those who love him and are fortunate enough to share his orbit know a person who is sweet, sensitive, surprisingly shy and filled with a sense of playfulness and wonder as a person. child. (Itzkoff also observed Gottfried’s “basic shyness”.)

Men who cause controversy in public sometimes retreat in private. Gottfried was equally loud and slanderous while holding the microphone in his hand – but he was “a soft man on the inside,” Oscar-winning actor Marlee Matlin tweeted.

“It’s a funny thing because people will act weird if I don’t act the way they want me to act directly,” Gottfried said. Time Out New York 2014. But even though I think they’re crazy to think that way, I’m basically the same as those people. “

He went on to explain, “It’s like, I’ve never met Julia Roberts, but if I met her and she didn’t open her mouth really wide and start squirming and twirling her hair around, I would think: Why? she acts like that again. is it different now?”

The comedian passed away not long after his fellow comedians passed away Norm Macdonald and Bob saget. The three men are on the same wavelength in at least one respect: subversive in their jokes, serious in their personal lives.

Gottfried adores Hollywood’s Golden Age and classic movie stars. He got an impression of Groucho Marx and Bela Lugosi long after the average American even recognized those names. But his paradoxical hobby is a remarkable one. How sharp is he really?

The language of classic Hollywood is how he once explained the truth of his real voice, in a seductively self-deprecating style. Time Out New York asked him if his shrill-voiced cane got louder over time.

“Oh, yes,” Gottfried replied. “In real life, I sound like Bing Crosby!”

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