Rodney Dangerfield, who died yesterday after heart surgery at a Los Angeles Hospital at age 82, will certainly receive in death what he built a career on denying he got in life: respect. Presenting himself as a beaten-down everyman, he brought the art of a fine whine to new highs, or perhaps lows.

He had sustained success over four decades in standup comedy, appearing on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight” show 70 times. He appeared on dozens of television shows and his own comedy specials, some of which he produced himself. He wrote screenplays and appeared in a score of movies, most notably “Caddyshack” and “Back to School.”

Yet when it came to Hollywood, Dangerfield truly couldn’t get any respect: In 1995, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rejected his application for membership. The letter, signed by Roddy McDowell (an actor who found one of his most affecting roles while wearing a rubber ape mask) stated that Dangerfield had failed to perform “enough of the kinds of roles that allow a performer to demonstrate the mastery of his craft.”

It was as hard a slap as he ever endured in public, and Dangerfield played it to the hilt in his act. (Fan outcry prompted the academy to reverse itself.)

Most comedians who make it in show business climb the ladder of standup as youngsters, then stick around to perform in sitcoms or films or to make guest appearances on the talk circuit. Dangerfield’s career track was a bit different: After a few frustrating years in small comedy clubs, he gave up, got a job, and raised a family. Only when he was in his 40s did he return to the stage, and by then he had come up with his ticket to success and respect: no respect. He said it was inspired by repeated viewings of “The Godfather.”

Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen on Long Island into a family that befitted his beaten-down stage persona. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother struggled to raise young Jacob and his sister alone. Dangerfield sold ice cream at the beach and packed groceries. The family’s struggles are recorded in his recent autobiography: “It’s Not Easy Bein’ Me: A Lifetime of No Respect but Plenty of Sex and Drugs.”

“I found myself going to school with kids and then in the afternoon I’d be delivering groceries to their back door,” he recalled. “I ended up feeling inferior to everybody.” He compensated by playing the class clown, and by age 15 he was writing down his best material and storing it in a duffel bag.

Dangerfield’s father and uncle toured in vaudeville, doing a pantomime comedy-juggling act. Starting at 19, Dangerfield started working as a singing waiter at resort hotels in the Catskills. He did comedy, too, billing himself as Jack Roy. (His father had called himself Philip Roy.)

Back in New York, Dangerfield drove a laundry truck, delivered fish, and hustled for standup gigs. He did impressions, sang Al Jolson tunes, and sometimes did a Chinese act called “On Too Long.”

Dangerfield found moderate success, but after he married Joyce Indig, a singer, he decided he wanted a family and a normal life. Dangerfield quit show business and took a job selling aluminum siding. In later years, a favorite joke was: “You have any idea how well I was doing at the time I quit? I was the only one who knew I quit.” Some part of him never left, though: He kept on writing jokes and storing the best ones in his duffel.

Suburban life eventually soured for Dangerfield, and after divorcing, remarrying his wife, then divorcing again, he decided to take another chance on show business. Not wanting to draw attention to himself after years away, he opened at New York’s Inwood Lounge, and asked the owner to give him a stage name for his first date. Thus was born Rodney Dangerfield.

His “no respect” routine – for which he later estimated he wrote 500 jokes – was a big hit, and by the late 1960s, he was a regular on Mr. Carson’s show. After his ex-wife died, Dangerfield decided to stop touring, settle down, and raise his children. He opened a nightclub, Dangerfields, in Manhattan, where he appeared regularly and also groomed new talent. Among the careers he help launch were some of the great names of comedy of recent decades, including Jim Carrey, Roseanne Barr, Sam Kinison, Andy Kaufman, and Jerry Seinfeld.

He appeared in his first movie, “The Projectionist,” in 1971, but it was not until the comedy “Caddyshack”(1980) that he broke through to a film audience.

By the 1980s,he was also a regular on television, hosting specials with titles like, “The Rodney Dangerfield Special: I Can’t Take It No More” and “Rodney Dangerfield: Nothin’ Goes Right.” Because of his hilarity, or at least ubiquity, the Smithsonian collected his trademark white shirt and red tie. At least in Washington, he got some respect.

Dangerfield slowed down over the past couple of years, and issued his autobiography, but he still wrote jokes for his duffel bag. Over the summer, he was interviewed on National Public

Radio’s “Fresh Air” and described his writing process: “Well, sometimes you hit one right off the bat, suddenly, boom, right? And sometimes you can try, but you’ve got to sit and write one, like I wrote a joke, you know, the other day. It was in the book, I think, you know. I’m getting old. I had an accident. I was arrested for hit and walk.”

Rodney Dangerfield

Born Jacob Cohen on November 22, 1921 in New York City; died of complications from heart surgery on October 5 at University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center; survived by his wife, Joan Child, and two children.