Marjorie Gross = Mary Gross?

Dave

unread,

Sep 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM9/20/96

to

Is Marjorie Gross the person better known as Mary Gross, the woman
that starred on SNL in the early 80's?
Does anyone know how she died?

Gravity Rules

unread,

Sep 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM9/20/96

to

cancer

Kathy O'Connell

unread,

Sep 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM9/20/96

to

No, Marjorie Gross and Mary Gross are 2 different people.

And, yes...it was cancer. I believe it was ovarian cancer. She
discussed her illness during her appearances on the Howard Stern
Show.

Gravity Rules (JCZal...@worldnet.att.net)

kenny kramer

unread,

Sep 23, 1996, 3:00:00 AM9/23/96

to

In article <32421800...@netnews.worldnet.att.net>,
JCZal...@worldnet.att.net (Gravity Rules) wrote:

Here is a obit fromn The New York Times. Marjorie was a very special person.

June 16, 1996

Marjorie Gross, 40, Producer and Writer for TV's 'Seinfeld'

By DINITIA SMITH

Marjorie Gross, a writer and producer of the television series
"Seinfeld," who also wrote a humorous article about her ovarian cancer in
The New Yorker in April, died of the illness June 7 at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was 40.

Ms. Gross was born in Toronto and got her start doing stand-up comedy
in local clubs. She moved to New York City, where she became one of a
group of female stand-up comedians, who were then a relative rarity,
performing at Catch a Rising Star, the Comic Strip and the Improvisation.

In 1981, Ms. Gross broke into television as a writer for the sitcom
"Square Pegs," with Sarah Jessica Parker. She also appeared on "Late Show
With David Letterman." Then in 1994, she joined two old friends, Jerry
Seinfeld and Larry David, as a writer for "Seinfeld."

Even after her ovarian cancer was diagnosed two and a half years ago,
Ms. Gross kept working. "Jerry put a cot in her office for her so she
could lie down," her brother Jonathan said.

Among the "Seinfeld" shows Ms. Gross wrote, with Peter Mehlman, was the
shower head episode, which was rebroadcast Thursday. The episode was an
extended riff on the drawbacks of environmentally approved low-flow shower
heads. One by one, the show's characters made their appearance with
flattened hair because their showers lacked enough pressure to rinse out
shampoo.

In her New Yorker article about having ovarian cancer, a disease that
killed her mother, Ms. Gross made the illness sound like nothing more than
a vast practical joke.

In the piece, titled "Cancer Becomes Me," she made light of some of the
darker aspects of her illness, noting the way doctors tend to use
different analogies when describing tumors in women and men. "They found a
tumor that they said was the size of an orange," she wrote. "See, for
women they use the citrus fruit comparison; for men it's sporting goods:
Oh, it's the size of a softball, or in England, a cricket ball."

She listed some "advantages" to being sick, including, "You
automatically get called courageous," and, "Everyone returns your calls
immediately: having cancer is like being Mike Ovitz."

Besides her brother, of Toronto, she is survived by her father, Jules
Gross, and another brother, Adam, both of whom also live in Toronto.