James Curtis - Last Man Standing: Mort Sahl and the Birth of Modern Comedy

LAST MAN STANDING

LAST MAN STANDING

MORT SAHL

and the Birth of Modern Comedy

James Curtis

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

Also by James Curtis

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The Creative Producer (editor)

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www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

Copyright 2017 by James Curtis

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2017

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Curtis, James, 1953 author.

Title: Last man standing : Mort Sahl and the birth of modern comedy / James Curtis.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016043629 (print) | LCCN 2017004229 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496809285 (hardback) | ISBN 9781496811998 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496812001 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496812018 (pdf single) | ISBN 9781496812025 (pdf institutional) Subjects: LCSH: Sahl, Mort. | ComediansUnited StatesBiography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts. | PERFORMING ARTS / Comedy. Classification: LCC PN2287.S22 C87 2017 (print) | LCC PN2287. S22 (ebook) | DDC 792.7/6028092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016043629

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

In Memory of Robin Williams

Ill publish right or wrong:
Fools are my theme,
Let satire be my song.

LORD BYRON

CONTENTS

PART ONE

The Next President of the United States

IM NOT GEARED TO TOTAL ACCEPTANCE

A canopied entrance off Madison Avenue leads to one of New Yorks most intimate concert venues, a place where time has seemingly stood still for more than half a century. To the left of a small foyer is the Bemelmans Bar, its walls covered with fanciful scenes of Central Park as rendered by Ludwig Bemelmans, the celebrated author of Madeline. Jazzy standards fill the air, listeners scattered among nickel-trimmed tables and perched like placid crows at the black granite bar. Its as civilized a spot as exists on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the sort of room where the conversations come accessorized with dry martinis and the gimlets are mixed with fresh lime.

Opposite the Bemelmans is a shrine to the art of cabaret, a performance space only slightly larger than a regulation racquetball court. Here is where musical acts as varied as Herb Alpert and Eartha Kitt have held forth, and where Bobby Short was seasonally featured for thirty-six years. On its walls are the murals of Marcel Verts, the Academy Awardwinning designer of Moulin Rouge, its blue-hued banquettes encircling a floor still dominated by a grand piano.

Although Short, whose portrait hangs just outside, liked to refer to himself as a saloon singer, the Caf Carlyle has never been the province of comedians. When Woody Allen sits in with the Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band, he sticks to his clarinet and never utters a word. So of all the people who could possibly be booked into this elegant little sanctuary on a Monday night, one of the most unlikely is the man who single-handedly made the stage safe for an open collar, a jazz artist who can neither sing nor play an instrument, a satirist so savage that Time once described him as Will Rogers with fangs.

Seated at a table near the back, Mort Sahl doesnt appear nervous in the least. Clad in a red cashmere sweater, he is still strikingly handsome at age 86, the celestial nose suggesting the profile of a much younger man, the graying hair at once both combed and unruly. He chats comfortably as the room fills, quick to break into a grin as if some private absurdity has just caught his attention. Occasionally a stranger leans in to shake his hand; one man asks him to sign a copy of his book Heartland and tells him that hes been a fan for fifty years.

Among those taking their seats are James Wolcott, cultural critic and blogger for Vanity Fair; the comedian Mark Pitta; broadcast journalist John Hart; and the stars third wife, Kenslea, who has flown in from California expressly for the occasion. At 10:50, Dick Cavett makes his way to the riser as applause fills the room.

Some years ago, he says by way of introduction, a meteor shot across the comedy sky. My new friend Woody Allen and I went to see him at a place called Basin Street East in New York. Woody said, Wait until you see him. You will agree with me that everyone else should quit the business. Here is a man who said: Ronald Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carterand if he had run unopposed he would have lost.

Once at Basin Street a guy yelled out, Is that a Brooks Brothers sweater? So Mort picked up the subject of Brooks Brothers and said, Its a strange store. They have no mirrors, but they will stand another customer in front of you.

Thats a bit of a weird curve, he admitted over the appreciative laughter, but I love weird curves

Ladies and gentlemen, the great Mort Sahl.

Prolonged applause as Sahl moves slowly toward the stage, his friend Lucy Mercer at his side, his balance uncertain after a 2008 stroke robbed him of the sight in one eye. Thank you, he says when firmly in place, a pair of newspapers clutched in his right hand. I want to tell you that Barack Obama has taken a reverse mortgage out on the White House.

The laugh builds as the thought sinks in.

The old saying was that if anything happened to the president, the Secret Service had standing orders to shoot Joseph Biden

More laughter.

This is not going to be a political show tonight. Id like to talk about a couple of other subjects I know something aboutmen and women. Politics are getting harder because the Democrats dont know how to make their comeback. Theyre already apologizing for this guy and promising you Hillary Clinton. She rose through the ranksslept with the boss. Or didnt sleep with the boss. Okay, Lady Macbeth.

Sizing up the room, he seems caught in a perpetual state of amusement. His blue eyes glow as if electrified. He flashes a gleaming set of teeth as would an animal on the verge of attack.

I brought two papers for you tonight, he announces. One is the New York Times because of the nature of the people who patronize this hotel, and one is the Post, which they hide behind it. The Times, as you know, is the last liberal paper in America. In other words, if there was a war between North Korea and Iran and they both used nuclear weapons, this is the way the Times would report it: NUCLEAR WAR! WORLD ENDS! And below the fold: WOMEN AND MINORITIES HIT HARDEST.

The show continues past midnight, Sahl drawing from an arsenal of material compiled over a span of sixty years and eleven presidencies. On stage he is uniquely alone; he has no writers, no peers in the narrow field of political satire. There is an easy authority in his voice, the kind that comes from the knowledge that all the public figures on whom he once cut his teeth have now passed from the scene. By sheer animal endurance he is the victor, the conquering hero, the last man standing in a field of giants. Toward the close of the evening he takes questions called to him from the audience and responds extemporaneously. In all, it would be a sterling performance for a man half his age.