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Dig A Hole: Insult Comedienne Beverly Wines Cardella aka PUDGY!

December 30th, 2007 by Scott Marks

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Kup’s Column How do you do, ladies and gentlemen, Kup’s Column begins tonight with the report of a tragic end to 2007. The entertainment world is mourning the loss of Beverly Wines Cardella, better known to…as, I should say, the great Pudgy! I can hear her now grazing at that giant Vegas buffet in the sky.

Pudgy’s pudgy body was found in her Las Vegas home the day before Christmas. Best known as the female Don Rickles, or as Essie used to call her, “Totie Fields with a vagina,” Pudgy! died of natural causes while watching television in her living room. Hopefully it wasn’t a video tape of one of the many Kup’s Shows that she guested on.

Lone before Roseanne Barrnold hit it big, Pudgy! started out as a wisecracking waitress working the tables in a restaurant near City Hall. Sadly, Essie and I never witnessed her skill as a waitstaff personnel because she worked in low grade Greek truck stops compared to the class joints the Kup’s dined at. Many of her regular patrons suggested that the corpulent cutie belonged on the stage. She agreed, and her first performing job came at Punchinello’s on trendy Rush Street. After years of hard work she became a fixture on the Chicago nite club circuit where she lived up to her nickname, “The Queen of Tease.”

Pudgy! always put her family before her career…something that this reporter was a miserable failure at…and worked her performing gigs round her home life. I can’ tell you how much pleasure her performances at the legendary Pump Room brought Essie and myself, particularly since all the meals were on the arm.

In 1993, with her three children old enough to make the trip, Pudgy! moved her family to Las Vegas where she began a longstanding series of engagements in local hot spots. I tell ya’ nobody knew how to host a tit show revue better than our girl Pudgy! Whenever Essie and I were in Vegas two spots were a constant: Sig Sackowicz’s home and The Riviera Hotel to check out Pudgy! in the Crazy Girls revue. Pudgy! frequently joked about how hard it was to win over an audience who didn’t pay to see a fully-clothed fat broad hurl insults at them.

I’d like to publicly point out that Pudgy! did all of this without once resorting to blue material or uttering smutty four-letter words. Not like those filthy scum-idians Howard Sterns or Sam Kingston. No sir, that Pudgy! was one classy broad, I should say.

Up until last year Pudgy! was working the X-Burlesque show at the Flamingo. Although I was unable to track down Pudgy’s age, I can report that she will be buried in Chicago.

Requiescat In Punchinello’s, dear funny lady!

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Filed Under Obituaries