Sadie Youngman--’Take My Wife . . . Please’--Dies at 82

Sadie Youngman, who though never on stage with her husband, came to be known as the subject of one of the shortest one-liners in modern comedy history, has died after a long illness. She was 82.

“Take my wife . . . please!” was probably the best known of the many gags Henny Youngman cracked over the years at his wife’s expense.

Mrs. Youngman died Thursday at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

“She took it with a grain of salt,” Youngman, 81, said of his wife of 58 years. “She knew I was just joking. She always stuck by me, and that’s what counts.”