Rodney Dangerfield, the paunchy, goggle-eyed comedian whose fidgety delivery and sad-sack catch phrase "I don't get no respect" brought him cult status and eventually wider fame, died yesterday in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 82.

The cause was complications after heart valve replacement surgery in August, said his spokesman, Kevin Sasaki. Mr. Dangerfield's health had been deteriorating in the last 18 months, although he had made a handful of television appearances.

Mr. Dangerfield's big break came in 1967 when, at 44 and relatively unknown, he won a spot on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Introducing a stream of lugubrious one-liners with his loser's prologue -- "Nothing goes right for me" -- he became a favorite guest on shows whose hosts included Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, Joan Rivers, Dean Martin, Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin.

With a rumpled suit and one hand perpetually loosening his trademark red necktie, Mr. Dangerfield took the stage as a hapless, self-deprecating Everyman slapped around by life and searching in vain for acceptance. It was a role that he had had some experience with offstage. But for his audiences, it was one laugh after another, from gag lines like these:

"I was an ugly child. I got lost on the beach. I asked a cop if he could find my parents. He said, 'I don't know. There's lots of places for them to hide."'