Gilda’s Club Kentuckiana is named in memory of Saturday Night Live star Gilda Radner. When diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986, Gilda found support with Psychotherapist Joanna Bull who believed in a correlation between emotional and physical well-being. Understanding how important the experience was to her treatment, it was Gilda’s dream to develop communities where no one would ever have to face cancer alone.

Gilda died from her cancer in 1989. In 1995, her husband, actor Gene Wilder, and Bull, along with family and friends, founded the first Gilda’s Club in New York City.