Selma Diamond

 Selma Diamond (August 6, 1920 – May 13, 1985)

Diamond was a Canadian-American comedic actress and radio and television writer, known for her high-range, raspy voice, and her portrayal of Selma Hacker on the first two seasons of the NBC television comedy series Night Court. Her first radio writing credit was in 1943 on Pabst Blue Ribbon Time with Groucho Marx, the Camel Caravan with Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore, The Drene Show with Rudy Vallee, Duffy's Tavern, and The Kenny Baker Show. In 1950, she became one of the staffers hired by legendary comedy writer Goodman Ace for The Big Show (1950–52), the ninety-minute weekly program hosted by actress Tallulah Bankhead. She moved on to television as one of the writers for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca's groundbreaking Your Show of Shows. Diamond was reputed to have been the inspiration for the Sally Rogers character on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which centered on the head writer for a fictitious, mercurial television comedian. While writing for another Caesar vehicle, Caesar's Hour, Diamond earned an Emmy nomination. By the 1960s and 1970s, Diamond was familiar as a frequent guest on The Jack Paar Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and she made numerous film appearances, including Stanley Kramer's comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (as the unseen telephone voice of Spencer Tracy's wife, Ginger Culpepper), Bang the Drum Slowly (as hotel switchboard operator Tootsie), and All of Me (as Margo).

The diminutive Diamond, who was a chain smoker, was one of the original cast of Night Court until she was stricken with lung cancer and died at age 64 in Los Angeles. By tragic coincidence, her successor playing the bailiff, Florence Halop, was also lost to lung cancer after her one year in the cast of Night Court. Diamond is interred at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, CA.