Nesteroff - The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy

THE
COMEDIANS

THE
COMEDIANS

Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels
and the
History of American Comedy

Kliph Nesteroff

Grove Press

New York

Copyright 2015 by Kliph Nesteroff

Jacket design by Charles Rue Woods

Jacket artwork by Michael Tedesco

Author photograph Jim Herrington

Some of the material herein is based on Kliph Nesteroffs work with WFMUs Beware of the Blog and Classic Television Showbiz .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or .

Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-8021-2398-5

eISBN 978-0-8021-9086-4

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove Atlantic

154 West 14th Street

New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

For Marc M
thanks for the boost

CONTENTS

: Vaudeville Comedians

: Radio

: Nightclubs

: Television

: Late Night

: The Emergence of Las Vegas

: Stand-ups Great Change

: Percolation in the Mid-1960s

: Hippie Madness at Decades End

: The First Comedy Clubs and the 1970s

: The Stand-up Comedy Boom

: The 1990s

: The New Millennium

PREFACE

Im sitting in a greenroom across from Mel Brooks on a Tuesday afternoon in February. Here on the Warner Bros. lot he is idling, waiting to be brought onstage by Conan OBrien for a taping of the TBS program Conan . The loss of his beloved wife nine years ago seems to have hushed his backstage tones, but in a half hour when his name is announced, Brooks will summon his unique comic energy and annihilate a young audience on the very lot where he made Blazing Saddles forty years ago.

Jokes have been made about Brooks and his longtime comedy partner Carl Reiner gaining on the 2000 Year Old Man, but at eighty-eight and ninety-two, respectively, they remain astoundingly perceptive. Like time travelers, they have transitioned from one generation to another. Reiners first TV gig was in 1949 and Brooks had his in 1950, a time when owning a television was a luxury. Now Reiner has lived long enough to use Twitter as compulsively as a teenage girl and Brooks is hustling Blu-Rays and appearing on podcasts. Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner: seminal links to comedys past living in the world of the future.

Today Brooks is wearing a white-collared shirt and a rumpled black blazer. He drags his right palm across his face like a washcloth, a nervous tic of sorts. Comedian Jimmy Pardo speed-walks through the greenroom, reknotting a necktie, preparing for the audience warm-up. Tonights episode of Conan is a tribute to Sid Caesar, the legendary comic actor who had recently died at the age of ninety-one.

In the 1950s Caesar was not just a top sketch comedian, but a revolutionary one. His two programs, Your Show of Shows (19501954) and Caesars Hour (19541957), employed the most influential comedy writers of the twentieth century, including Brooks, Reiner, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon. Conan OBrien said Sid Caesar was the whole reason he got into comedy:

When I was a kid growing up in Brookline, Massachusetts, my father took me to the Hearthstone Plaza in Brookline Village to see something called Ten from Your Show of Shows ... He said, Youve got to see this. He took me, lights go down, I watch this, and when it was over I thought to myself, I dont know what that guy is doingbut I want to do that.

Mel Brooks was the wunderkind behind the Sid Caesar sketches, and when the program went off the air in 1954 Brooks was a hot commodity. Over on a different comedy program, The Red Buttons Show , the ratings were plunging, and NBC thought Brooks might be able to help. Mel was hired to write and direct the sinking show. It would have been his directorial debut, fifteen years before The Producers . Instead Brooks quit after only six days. I had always wondered about the reason, and since we were both idling in the greenroom, I asked him.

Mel... Ive always wondered... In 1954 you were hired to direct The Red Buttons Show ... It would have been your directorial debut, but it never happened...

Buttons, yeah. I dont think I ever did it.

He had a reputation for being difficult...

Oh, yes. Yeah, there was only one comedian worse, only one person more difficult to work for.

Whos that?

Jack Carter.

Back in 1950 Jack Carter had been Sid Caesars Saturday night lead-in as the star of The Jack Carter Show . Another iron man of show business, Carter recently died at the age of ninety-three. He was a nightclub powerhouse during the 1950s and 1960s, and a ubiquitous TV personality on everything from The Judy Garland Show to The Odd Couple to the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts . Carters first stand-up gig was in 1943, and he still appeared on programs like New Girl and Shameless until his death in 2015. Mels suggestion that Jack could be difficult was accurate, and I knew it firsthand. Over the course of chronicling stand-up history I interviewed Jack Carter several times. I learned that his curmudgeon exterior masked a gentle but insecure man. Not long ago as I was leaving his home he shouted at me, How does a total fucking nobody like you get a book deal? It made me laugh. He was seldom happy about anything, but I couldnt help but love the guy.

Id grown fond of many elderly comedians over the course of my research: some famous, some obscure, some funny, some cringe-worthy. I respected them all. I found their stories of Mob run-ins, hopeless bombs and triumphant evenings altogether fascinating. In the case of Brooks and Carter they were among the only men alive from whom I could get firsthand information about forgotten venues and faded comics.

One month after Mel Brooks and I chatted in the Conan greenroom, we faced each other again, this time at the Cinefamily theater in Los Angeles. Id convinced Brooks to join me for an onstage interview about Sid Caesar followed by a 35mm screening of Ten from Your Show of Shows , the sketch film Conan OBrien cited as his primary influence. I was pacing backstage when my phone rang. Hi, its Mel! Were driving down the alley. Where is it? Is this it? Is that you? What? Where? Okay! Brooks hopped out of a Town Car with his unlikely companion for the evening, the owner of Elvis Presleys Graceland. We casually went over some talking points while he sipped from his ginger ale and vodka and conversed about old, forgotten acts like Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals. We were fully warmed up come showtime. The executive director of the theater welcomed the crowd and gave a preamble while we waited in the wings. Brooks whispered to me, You gonna talk first?

Yeah, I said. Ill set it up and talk about Sid Caesar for three minutes...

Do five, said Mel.

I laughed. Whatnow Im opening for you?

Yeah, youre opening for me!