A comedian (feminine comedienne ) or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience by making them laugh . This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting foolishly (as in slapstick ), or employing prop comedy . A comedian who addresses an audience directly is called a stand-up comedian .
89-527: A popular saying often attributed to Ed Wynn states: "A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny." This draws a distinction between how much of the comedy can be attributed to verbal content and how much to acting and persona. Since the 1980s, a new wave of comedy, called alternative comedy , has grown in popularity with its more offbeat and experimental style. This normally involves more experiential, or observational reporting (e.g., Alexei Sayle , Daniel Tosh , Malcolm Hardee ). As far as content
178-1261: A Hollywood supply of comedians to draw from, radio comedy did not begin in the United Kingdom until a generation later, with such popular 1950s shows as The Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour . Later, radio became a proving-ground for many later United Kingdom comedians. Chris Morris began his career in 1986 at Radio Cambridgeshire , and Ricky Gervais began his comedy career in 1997 at London radio station XFM . The League of Gentlemen , Mitchell and Webb and The Mighty Boosh all transferred to television after broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 . On television there are comedy talk shows where comedians make fun of current news or popular topics. Such comedians include Jay Leno , Conan O'Brien , Graham Norton , Jim Jefferies , James Corden , John Oliver , Jonathan Ross , David Letterman , and Chelsea Handler . There are sketch comedies, such as Mr. Show with Bob and David and Monty Python who created their sketch comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus (a BBC show that influenced Saturday Night Live ), and sitcoms, such as Roseanne , Only Fools and Horses , and Not Going Out , as well as popular panel shows like The Big Fat Quiz of
267-443: A Prophet . The 2016 biography of Frank Ray Perilli, The Candy Butcher , devotes a chapter to Perilli's ten-year collaboration with Bruce. Bruce released four albums of original material on Fantasy Records, later compiled and re-released as The Lenny Bruce Originals . Two later records were produced and sold by Bruce himself, including a 10-inch album of the 1961 San Francisco performances that started his legal troubles. Starting in
356-843: A Torch Song (1933), and as a pot of jam in the Betty Boop short Betty in Blunderland (1934). He appeared as the Fairy Godfather in Jerry Lewis 's Cinderfella . His performance as Paul Beaseley in the 1958 film The Great Man earned him nominations for a Golden Globe Award for "Best Supporting Actor" and a BAFTA Award for "Best Foreign Actor". The following year he received his first (and only) nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). Six years later he appeared in
445-427: A brief, ad-libbed spot with Graham McNamee during an NBC experimental television broadcast. In the 1949–50 season, Wynn hosted The Ed Wynn Show , one of the first network, comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won both a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton , Carmen Miranda , Lucille Ball , Desi Arnaz , Hattie McDaniel and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. This
534-491: A capacity of 2,100, only 200 people attended, including a strong police presence, and Bruce gave what was described as a "subdued" performance. It was long rumored that a tape recording of the historic performance was made by police, but it was in fact recorded by local jazz saxophonist Sid Powell, who brought a portable tape recorder to the show. The tape was rediscovered in 2011 in the possession of Australian singer Sammy Gaha, who had acted as Bruce's chauffeur during his visit; it
623-514: A career change rather than retire. The comedian reluctantly began a career as a dramatic actor in television and films. Father and son appeared in three productions, the first of which was the 1956 Playhouse 90 broadcast of Rod Serling 's play Requiem for a Heavyweight . Ed was terrified of straight acting, and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal. When the producers wanted to fire him, star Jack Palance said he would quit if they fired Ed. (However, unbeknownst to Wynn, supporting player Ned Glass
712-646: A comedian. However, he found it difficult to differentiate himself from the thousands of other show business hopefuls who populated the city. One place where they congregated was Hanson's, a diner where Bruce met Joe Ancis, who had a profound influence on Bruce's approach to comedy. Many of Bruce's later routines reflected his meticulous schooling at the hands of Ancis. According to Bruce's biographer Albert Goldman , Ancis's humor involved stream-of-consciousness sexual fantasies and references to jazz. He also gained notoriety for his focus on controversial subjects, black humour, obscenity, and criticism of organized religion and
801-413: A comic author, and playwright, wrote ancient comedic plays. He wrote 40 comedies, 11 of which survive and are still being performed. Aristophanes' comedy style took the form of satyr plays . The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare wrote many comedies. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that
890-584: A comic's career advances significantly when they win a notable comedy award, such as the Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly the Perrier comedy award). Comics sometimes foray into other areas of entertainment, such as film and television, where they become more widely known (e.g., Eddie Izzard , Lee Evans ). A comic's stand-up success does not always correlate to a film's critical or box-office success. Comedians can be dated back to 425 BC, when Aristophanes ,
979-577: A famous performance at the Berkeley Community Theatre in December 1965, which was recorded and became his last live album, The Berkeley Concert . The performance has been described as lucid, clear and calm, and one of his best. His last performance took place on June 25, 1966, at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, on a bill with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention . The performance
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#17328545508301068-1097: A five-decade span in radio, television, and entertaining armed-service troops through the USO . Other noted stand-up comedians include Lenny Bruce , Billy Connolly , George Carlin , Richard Pryor , Victoria Wood , Joan Rivers , Whoopi Goldberg and Jo Brand . Some of the earliest commercial sound recordings were made by standup comedians such as Cal Stewart , who recorded collections of his humorous monologues on Edison Records as early as 1898, and other labels until his death in 1919. Bandleader Spike Jones recorded 15 musical comedy albums satirizing popular and classical music from 1950 to his death in 1965. Tom Lehrer wrote and recorded five albums of songs satirizing political and social issues from 1953 to 1965. Musician Peter Schickele , inspired by Jones, parodied classical music with 17 albums of his music which he presented as written by " P.D.Q. Bach " (fictional son of Johann Sebastian Bach ) from 1965 through 2007. In 1968, radio surreal comedy group The Firesign Theatre revolutionized
1157-525: A friend of Bruce's, bought the negatives of the photographs "to keep them from the press". The official cause of death was "acute morphine poisoning caused by an overdose". Bruce's remains were interred in Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California , but an unconventional memorial on August 21 was controversial enough to keep his name in the spotlight. Over 500 people came to
1246-467: A hat salesman and as a utility boy, and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family the embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative. Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914. During The Follies of 1915 , W. C. Fields allegedly caught Wynn mugging for the audience under
1335-428: A low-budget burlesque romp; and a children's film, The Rocket Man , in 1954. In 1956, Frank Ray Perilli , a fellow nightclub comedian who later wrote two dozen successful films and plays, became Bruce's mentor and part-time manager. Through Perilli, Bruce met and collaborated with photojournalist William Karl Thomas on three screenplays ( Leather Jacket , Killer's Grave and The Degenerate ), none of which made it to
1424-552: A major impact on comedy in films today. Laurel met Oliver Hardy in the US and teamed up as Laurel and Hardy . Keaton also started making silent comedies. Fields appeared in Broadway musical comedies , three silent films in 1915 and 1925, and in sound films starting in 1926. The Marx brothers also made the transition to film in 1929, by way of two Broadway musicals. Many other comedians made sound films, such as Bob Hope (both alone, and in
1513-490: A misleading setup (known as a 'pull back and reveal' in the UK and a 'leadaway' in the US). Ed Byrne is an example of a comedian who has used this technique. Some jokes are based on ad absurdum extrapolations, for example much of Richard Herring and Ross Noble 's standup. In ironic humour there is an intentional mismatch between a message and the form in which it is conveyed (for example
1602-404: A nightclub tour. During the trip, Honey was arrested for marijuana possession and prevented from leaving the island due to her parole conditions. Lenny took this opportunity to leave her again, this time kidnapping the then one-year-old Kitty. In her autobiography, Honey claimed Lenny turned her in to the police. She was later sentenced to two years in federal prison. Bruce's divorce from Honey
1691-442: A red fireman's helmet. He usually bounced his gags off announcer/straight man Graham McNamee ; Wynn's customary opening, "Tonight, Graham, the show's gonna be different," became one of the most familiar tag-lines of its time; a sample joke: "Graham, my uncle just bought a new second-handed car... he calls it Baby! I don't know, it won't go anyplace without a rattle!" Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two films, Follow
1780-517: A retouched photograph appearing to show Bruce giving a fascist salute . The venue owners cancelled the rest of Bruce's performances, and he retreated to his Kings Cross hotel room. Local university students (including future OZ magazine editor Richard Neville ), who were fans of Bruce's humor tried to arrange a performance at the Roundhouse at the University of New South Wales , but at the last minute
1869-416: A series of " Road to ... " comedies with partner Bing Crosby ), ventriloquist Edgar Bergen , and Jerry Lewis (both with and without partner Dean Martin ). Some comedians who entered film expanded their acting skills to become dramatic actors, or started as actors specializing in comic roles, such as Dick Van Dyke , Paul Lynde , Michael Keaton , Bill Murray and Denis Leary . Radio comedy began in
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#17328545508301958-630: A stripper led him to pursue schemes designed to make as much money as possible. The most notable was the Brother Mathias Foundation scam, which resulted in Bruce's arrest in Miami , Florida , in 1951 for impersonating a priest. He was soliciting donations for a leper colony in British Guiana (now Guyana ) under the auspices of the "Brother Mathias Foundation", which he had legally chartered—the name
2047-628: Is a preposition, come is a verb"; that the sexual context of 'come' was so common that it bore no weight; and that if someone hearing it became upset, he "probably can't come". Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under obscenity charges. Bruce was arrested again in 1961 in Philadelphia for drug possession, and again in Los Angeles two years later. The latter arrest took place in then-unincorporated West Hollywood , and
2136-726: Is concerned, comedians such as Tommy Tiernan , Des Bishop , Kevin Hart , and Dawn French draw on their background to poke fun at themselves, while others such as Jon Stewart , Ben Elton and Sarah Silverman have very strong political and cultural undertones. Many comics achieve a cult following while touring famous comedy hubs such as the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal , the Edinburgh Fringe , and Melbourne Comedy Festival in Australia . Often
2225-545: Is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. American performance comedy has its roots in the 1840s from the three-act , variety show format of minstrel shows (via blackface performances of the Jim Crow character ); Frederick Douglass criticized these shows for profiting from and perpetuating racism . Minstrelsy monologists performed second-act, stump-speech monologues from within minstrel shows until 1896. American standup also emerged in vaudeville theatre from
2314-424: Is necessarily pathological. Forbes publishes an annual list of the most financially successful comedians in the world, similarly to their Celebrity 100 list . Their data sources include Nielsen Media Research , Pollstar , Box Office Mojo and IMDb . The list was topped by Jerry Seinfeld from 2006 until 2015, who lost the title to Kevin Hart in 2016. In that year, the eight highest paid comedians were from
2403-573: Is the pun or double-entendre, where similar words are interchanged. The Two Ronnies often used puns and double-entendre. Stewart Francis and Tim Vine are examples of current comedians who deploy numerous puns. Jokes based on puns tend to be very quick and easy to digest, which sometimes leads to other joke forms being overlooked, for example in the Funniest Joke of the Fringe awards. Other jokes may rely on confounding an audience's expectations through
2492-483: The Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio program. Lenny did a piece inspired by Sid Caesar , "The Bavarian Mimic", featuring impressions of American movie stars (e.g., Humphrey Bogart , James Cagney , and Edward G. Robinson ). Bruce's early comedy career included writing the screenplays for Dance Hall Racket in 1953, which featured Bruce, his wife Honey Harlow , and mother Sally Marr; Dream Follies in 1954,
2581-459: The United States . The participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire designed to measure psychotic traits in healthy people. They found that comedians scored "significantly higher on four types of psychotic characteristics compared to a control group of people who had non-creative jobs." Gordon Claridge, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Oxford and leader of
2670-461: The radio show The Fire Chief , heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in the same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with
2759-413: The 100 greatest stand-ups of all time, above Woody Allen (4th) and below Richard Pryor (1st) and George Carlin (2nd). Both comedians who ranked higher than Bruce considered him a major influence. Pryor said that hearing Bruce for the first time "changed my life"; while Carlin said that Bruce was a "brilliant comedian" who influenced him as much as a man in his moral thinking and attitudes as he did as
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2848-471: The 1880s to the 1930s, with such comics as W. C. Fields , Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers . British performance comedy has its roots in 1850 music hall theatres, where Charlie Chaplin , Stan Laurel , and Dan Leno first performed, mentored by comedian and theatre impresario Fred Karno , who developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue in the 1890s and also pioneered slapstick comedy . In
2937-681: The 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor, which continued into the 1960s. His variety show (1949–1950), The Ed Wynn Show , won a Peabody Award and an Emmy Award . Wynn was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , to a Jewish family. His father, Joseph, a milliner , was born in Bohemia . His mother, Minnie Greenberg, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul . Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. He ran away from home in his teens, worked as
3026-751: The 50 best stand-up comics of all time. Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola , New York . His British-born father, Myron (Mickey) Schneider, was a shoe clerk; they saw each other very infrequently. His mother, Sally Marr (legal name Sadie Schneider, born Sadie Kitchenberg), was a stage performer and dancer who had an enormous influence on his career. Bruce grew up in Bellmore, New York and attended Wellington C. Mepham High School . For some of his high school years, he lived at Dengler's Farm on Wantagh Avenue in Wantagh, New York. Bruce's parents divorced before he
3115-631: The Angels ". Serling, a longtime admirer, had written that episode especially for him, and Wynn later in 1963 starred in the S5 E12 episode " Ninety Years Without Slumbering ". For the rest of his life, Wynn skillfully moved between comic and dramatic roles. He appeared in feature films and anthology television, endearing himself to new generations of fans. Wynn was caricatured in the Merrie Melodies cartoon shorts Shuffle Off to Buffalo (1933), I've Got to Sing
3204-789: The Bible epic The Greatest Story Ever Told . Wynn provided the voice of the Mad Hatter in Walt Disney 's film Alice in Wonderland (1951) and played The Toymaker alongside Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands in the Christmas operetta film Babes in Toyland released in 1961. In Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), he played eccentric Uncle Albert floating around just beneath the ceiling in uncontrollable mirth, singing " I Love to Laugh ". Re-teaming with
3293-719: The Disney team the following year—in That Darn Cat! (1965), featuring Dean Jones and Hayley Mills —Wynn filled out the character of Mr. Hofstedder, the watch jeweler with his bumbling charm. He also had brief roles in The Absent Minded Professor (as the fire chief , in a scene alongside his son Keenan Wynn , who played the film's antagonist) and Son of Flubber (as county agricultural agent A.J. Allen). His final performance, as Rufus in Walt Disney's The Gnome-Mobile ,
3382-808: The Leader (1930) and The Chief (1933). Near the height of his radio fame (1933) he founded his own short-lived radio network the Amalgamated Broadcasting System , which lasted only five weeks, nearly destroying the comedian. According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, the failed venture left Wynn deep in debt, divorced and finally, suffering a nervous breakdown. Wynn was offered the title role The Wizard in MGM 's 1939 screen adaptation of The Wizard of Oz , but turned it down, as did his Ziegfeld contemporary W. C. Fields . The part went to Frank Morgan . Ed Wynn first appeared on television on July 7, 1936, in
3471-653: The Truth (1998), directed by Robert B. Weide and narrated by Robert De Niro , was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . Episode 12 of Season 1 of Liberty on Trial in America: Cases That Defined Freedom , aired on January 3, 2020, explored the ways in which Bruce and the First Amendment affected each other. In 2004, Comedy Central placed Bruce at number three on its list of
3560-535: The United States when Raymond Knight launched The Cuckoo Hour on NBC in 1930, along with the 1931 network debut of Stoopnagle and Budd on CBS . Most of the Hollywood comedians who did not become dramatic actors (e.g. Bergen, Fields, Groucho and Chico Marx , Red Skelton , Jack Benny , Fred Allen , Judy Canova , Hope, Martin and Lewis ), transitioned to United States radio in the 1930s and 1940s. Without
3649-408: The United States, including Amy Schumer , who became the first woman to be listed in the top ten. The top ten of 2016 are as follows: Ed Wynn Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn , was an American actor and comedian. He began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was known for his Perfect Fool comedy character, his pioneering radio show of
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3738-471: The Year , Have I Got News for You , and Celebrity Juice . The most acclaimed sitcoms include Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory . Comedy is increasingly enjoyed online. Several comedians got their start through the internet such as Bo Burnham . Comedians streaming videos of their stand-up include Bridget Christie , Louis C.K. and Daniel Kitson . There are many established formats for jokes. One example
3827-663: The arresting officer was a young deputy named Sherman Block , who later became county sheriff. The charge this time was that the comedian had used the word "schmuck", an insulting Yiddish word that was also considered a term for "penis". The Hollywood charges were later dismissed. On December 5, 1962, Bruce was arrested on stage at the Gate of Horn folk club in Chicago. That year, he played at Peter Cook 's The Establishment club in London, and in April
3916-489: The character King Candy in Disney 's animated film Wreck-It Ralph . Wynn was posthumously named a Disney Legend on August 10, 2013. In the graphic adventure game King's Quest VI , the character Jollo is based on his style. Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce , was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He
4005-571: The club Strip City. Harlow found employment at the Colony Club, widely known as the best burlesque club in Los Angeles at the time. Bruce left Strip City in late 1954 and found work at various strip clubs in the San Fernando Valley . As master of ceremonies, he introduced strippers while performing his material. The Valley clubs provided the perfect environment for him to create new routines. According to his primary biographer, Albert Goldman, it
4094-458: The concept of the spoken comedy album by writing and recording elaborate radio plays employing sound effects and multitrack recording , which comedian Robin Williams called "the audio equivalent of a Hieronymous Bosch painting." Comedy duo Cheech and Chong recorded comedy albums in a similar format from 1971 through 1985. Karno took Chaplin and Laurel on two trips to the United States to tour
4183-416: The country. He was booked for a two-week engagement at Aaron's Exchange Hotel, a small pub in central Sydney, by American-born, Australia-based promoter Lee Gordon , who was by then deeply in debt, nearing the end of his formerly successful career, and desperate to save his business. Bruce's first show at 9 p.m. on September 6 was uneventful, but his second show at 11 p.m. led to major public controversy. Bruce
4272-549: The establishment. Bruce took the stage as "Lenny Marsalle" one evening at the Victory Club as a stand-in master of ceremonies for one of his mother's shows. His ad-libs earned him some laughs. Soon afterward, in 1947, just after changing his last name to Bruce, he earned $ 12 and a free spaghetti dinner for his first stand-up performance in Brooklyn . He was later a guest—and was introduced by his mother, calling herself Sally Bruce—on
4361-525: The late 1960s, other unissued Bruce material was released by Alan Douglas , Frank Zappa and Phil Spector , as well as Fantasy. Bruce developed the complexity and tone of his material in Enrico Banducci 's North Beach nightclub, the hungry i , where Mort Sahl had earlier made a name for himself. Branded a "sick comic", Bruce was essentially blacklisted from television, and when he did appear, thanks to sympathetic fans like Hefner and Steve Allen , it
4450-470: The local clergy's inability to expose him as an impostor. Later, in his semifictional autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People , Bruce said that he had made about $ 8,000 in three weeks, sending $ 2,500 to the leper colony and keeping the rest. On October 4, 1961, Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, where he had used the word "cocksucker", and said that "to
4539-457: The midst of a severe blizzard, Bruce gave a famous performance at Carnegie Hall at midnight on February 4, 1961. It was recorded and later released as the three-disc set The Carnegie Hall Concert . In his posthumous biography of Bruce, Albert Goldman described that night: It's all a trip—and the best of it is you haven't the faintest idea where you're going! Lenny worshiped the gods of Spontaneity, Candor and Free Association. His greatest fear
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#17328545508304628-431: The modern era, as technology produced forms of mass communications media , these were adapted to entertainment and comedians adapted to the new media, sometimes switching to new forms as they were introduced. Stand-up comedy is a comic monologue performed standing on a stage. Bob Hope became the most popular stand-up comedian of the 20th century in a nearly 80-year career that included numerous comedy film roles over
4717-470: The modernist school." Honey and Lenny's daughter Kathleen ("Kitty") Bruce was born in 1955. Honey and Lenny had a tumultuous relationship with many serious domestic disputes, usually the result of serious drug use. They broke up and reunited over and over again between 1956 and Lenny's death in 1966. They first separated in March 1956, and were back together by July of that year when they traveled to Honolulu for
4806-524: The most profound and cataclysmic change in our popular culture the last few years—matching the "new sound" in music—has been the kind of humor exemplified by the Smothers Brothers , Laugh-In , Woody Allen , and that whole breed, whose secret source of strength was the late dark angel, Lenny Bruce. Bruce was the Gertrude Stein of comedians. Never popular himself—because he
4895-740: The naval service" . During the Korean War era, Bruce served in the United States Merchant Marine , ferrying troops from the US to Europe and back. In 1959, while videotaping the first episode of Hugh Hefner 's Playboy's Penthouse , Bruce talked about his Navy experience and showed a tattoo he received in Malta in 1942. After a short period living with his father in California, Bruce settled in New York City, hoping to establish himself as
4984-580: The next year he was barred from entering the United Kingdom by the Home Office as an "undesirable alien". In April 1964, he appeared twice at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village , with undercover police detectives in the audience. He was arrested along with club owners Howard and Elly Solomon, who were arrested for allowing an obscene performance. On both occasions, Bruce was arrested after leaving
5073-606: The original production also portraying themselves (including Rod Serling and director Ralph Nelson ). Ed and his son also worked together in the Jose Ferrer film The Great Man , with Ed again proving his unexpected skills in drama. Requiem established Wynn as a serious dramatic actor who could easily hold his own with the best. His performance in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Also in 1959, Wynn appeared on Serling's TV series The Twilight Zone in " One for
5162-534: The phrase which seems to become a cliche—he saw life as it is. Bruce's epitaph reads: "Beloved father—devoted son / Peace at last". Dick Schaap concluded his eulogy to Bruce in Playboy with the words: "One last four-letter word for Lenny: Dead. At forty. That's obscene". A memorial event was held at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City on August 12, which was "packed to overflowing" an hour before it
5251-399: The police directly in his comedy routine. These performances often included rants about his court battles over obscenity charges, tirades against fascism, and complaints that he was being denied his right to freedom of speech. He was banned outright from several U.S. cities. In September 1962, his only visit to Australia caused a media storm, although he was neither banned nor forced to leave
5340-526: The screen, and the comedy material on his first three comedy albums. Bruce was a roommate of comedian Buddy Hackett in the 1950s. The two appeared on the Patrice Munsel Show (1957–1958), calling their comedy duo the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", 20 years before the cast of Saturday Night Live used the same name. In 1957, Thomas booked Bruce into the Slate Brothers nightclub, where he
5429-570: The service to pay their respects, led by Spector. Cemetery officials tried to block the ceremony after ads for it encouraged attendees to bring box lunches and noisemakers. Delivering the eulogy, featured at the end of the documentary Lenny Bruce Without the Tears , the Rev. William Glenesk said: He was in a sense an evangelist, on a street corner. He was a man—up tight against an artificial world... who shattered its façades, and its hypocrisy, and—if you will pardon
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#17328545508305518-708: The stage. A three-judge panel presided over his widely publicized six-month trial, prosecuted by Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh , with Ephraim London and Martin Garbus as the defense attorneys. Bruce and Howard Solomon were found guilty of obscenity on November 4, 1964. The conviction was announced despite positive testimony and petitions of support from—among other artists, writers and educators— Woody Allen , Bob Dylan , Jules Feiffer , Allen Ginsberg , Norman Mailer , William Styron , and James Baldwin , and Manhattan journalist and television personality Dorothy Kilgallen and sociologist Herbert Gans . Bruce
5607-399: The study claimed, "the creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis—both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder." However, labeling comedians' personality traits as "psychotic" does not mean that individual is a psychopath, since psychopathy is distinct from psychosis , and neither does it mean their behavior
5696-421: The table during Fields's Pool Room routine and knocked Wynn unconscious with his cue. Wynn wrote, directed, and produced many Broadway shows in the subsequent decades, and was known for his silly costumes and props as well as for the giggly, wavering voice he developed for the 1921 musical revue The Perfect Fool . Wynn became a very active member of The Lambs Club in 1919. In the early 1930s, Wynn hosted
5785-597: The university's vice-chancellor rescinded permission to use the venue, with no reason given, and an interview Bruce was scheduled to give on Australian television was cancelled by the Australian Broadcasting Commission . Bruce remained largely confined to his hotel, but eight days later gave his third and last Australian concert at the Wintergarden Theatre in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Although it had
5874-529: The vaudeville circuit. On the second one, they were recruited by the fledgling silent film industry. Chaplin became the most popular screen comedian of the first half of the 20th century. Chaplin and Stan Laurel were protégés of Fred Karno , the English theatre impresario of British music hall , and in his biography Laurel stated, "Fred Karno didn't teach Charlie [Chaplin] and me all we know about comedy. He just taught us most of it". Chaplin wrote films such as Modern Times and The Kid . His films still have
5963-455: The work of Danielle Ward ). Other joke forms include observation ( Michael McIntyre ), whimsy ( David O'Doherty ), self-deprecation ( Robin Williams ) and parody ( Diane Morgan ). In a January 2014 study, conducted in the British Journal of Psychiatry , scientists found that comedians tend to have high levels of psychotic personality traits. In the study, researchers analyzed 404 male and 119 female comedians from Australia , Britain , and
6052-419: Was "precisely at the moment when he sank to the bottom of the barrel and started working the places that were the lowest of the low" that he suddenly broke free of "all the restraints and inhibitions and disabilities that formerly had kept him just mediocre and began to blow with a spontaneous freedom and resourcefulness that resembled the style and inspiration of his new friends and admirers, the jazz musicians of
6141-418: Was 10, and he lived with various relatives over the next decade. Bruce was Jewish. After spending time working on a farm, Bruce joined the United States Navy at the age of 16 in 1942, with active service during World War II aboard the USS Brooklyn (CL-40) in Northern Africa , Palermo in 1943, and Anzio, Italy , in 1944. In May 1945, after a comedic performance for his shipmates in which he
6230-409: Was dressed in drag, his commanding officers became upset. He defiantly convinced his ship's medical officer that he was experiencing homosexual urges, leading to his dishonorable discharge in July 1945. However, he had not admitted to or been found guilty of any breach of naval regulations, and successfully applied to change his discharge to "Under Honorable Conditions ... by reason of unsuitability for
6319-433: Was due to get underway. It was attended by prominent members of the arts community, many of whom also performed, and included Allen Ginsberg , Joe Lee Wilson , Jean Shepherd , Charlie Haden , and The Fugs ; Paul Krassner officiated. On December 23, 2003, 37 years after Bruce's death, New York Governor George Pataki granted him a posthumous pardon for his obscenity conviction. Perhaps
6408-466: Was finalized in 1959. He had an affair with jazz singer Annie Ross in the late 1950s. Comedienne Lotus Weinstock was Bruce's girlfriend and fiancee at the time of his death. Bruce had a severe drug addiction in the final decade of his life, using heroin , methamphetamine and Dilaudid daily, and suffering numerous health problems and personal strife as a result. His death was caused by an overdose. Bruce's desire to help his wife stop working as
6497-703: Was finalized on March 1, 1955. Wynn was a Freemason at Lodge No. 9 in Pennsylvania. Wynn died on June 19, 1966, in Beverly Hills, California , of esophageal cancer , at the age of 79. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale . His bronze grave marker reads: Dear God: Thanks... Ed Wynn Red Skelton , who was discovered by Wynn, stated: "His death is the first time he ever made anyone sad." Wynn's distinctive voice continues to be emulated by countless actors and comedians, including Alan Tudyk for
6586-456: Was fired the first night for what Variety headlined as " blue material ". This led to the theme of Bruce's first solo album on Berkeley -based Fantasy Records , The Sick Humor of Lenny Bruce , for which Thomas photographed the album cover. Thomas also photographed Bruce's other covers, acted as cinematographer on abortive attempts to film their screenplays, and in 1989 wrote a memoir of their ten-year collaboration, Lenny Bruce: The Making of
6675-612: Was getting his act down pat. On this night, he rose to every chance stimulus, every interruption and noise and distraction, with a mad volleying of mental images that suggested the fantastic riches of Charlie Parker's horn. The first flash was simply the spectacle of people piled up in America's most famous concert hall. In August 1965, a year before his death, Bruce gave his penultimate performance at San Francisco's Basin Street West , mainly talking about his legal troubles. The filmed performance
6764-440: Was heckled by audience members, and when local actress Barbara Wyndon stood up and complained that Bruce was only talking about America and asked him to talk about something different, a clearly annoyed Bruce responded, "Fuck you, madam. That's different, isn't it?" Bruce's remark shocked some audience members and several walked out. By the next day, several Sydney papers denounced Bruce as "sick"; one illustrated their story with
6853-565: Was his own invention, but possibly referred to the actual Brother Matthias who had befriended Babe Ruth at the Baltimore orphanage where Ruth had been confined as a child. While posing as a laundry man, Bruce stole several priests' clergy shirts and a clerical collar. He was acquitted because of the legality of the New York state-chartered foundation, the actual existence of the Guiana leper colony, and
6942-488: Was his secret understudy in case something did happen before air time.) On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, and his quick ad libs to cover his mistakes. A dramatization of what happened during the production was later staged as an April 1960 Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse episode, The Man in the Funny Suit , starring both senior and junior Wynns, with key figures involved in
7031-465: Was later published as How to Talk Dirty and Influence People . During this time, Bruce also contributed a number of articles to Krassner's satirical magazine The Realist . On August 3, 1966, Bruce was found dead in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home. The official photo taken at the scene showed him lying naked on the floor, a syringe and burned bottle cap nearby, along with various other narcotics paraphernalia. Record producer Phil Spector ,
7120-514: Was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for the role. It was based on the Broadway stage play of the same name by Julian Barry , which starred Cliff Gorman in his 1972 Tony Award -winning role. The main character's editing of a fictionalized film version of Lenny was also a major part of Fosse's own autobiopic, the 1979 Academy Award-nominated All That Jazz , where Gorman again played Bruce. The documentary film Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell
7209-450: Was not remembered fondly by Bill Graham , whose memoir describes Bruce as "whacked out on amphetamine "; Graham thought that Bruce finished his set emotionally disturbed. Zappa asked Bruce to sign his draft card , but the suspicious Bruce refused. At the request of Hefner and with the aid of Paul Krassner , Bruce wrote an autobiography that was serialized in Playboy in 1964 and 1965. It
7298-698: Was released a few months after his death. In addition to Disney films, Wynn was also an actor in the Disneyland production The Golden Horseshoe Revue . Wynn was married three times. He first married actress Hilda Keenan on September 5, 1914. They eventually divorced on May 13, 1937, after twenty-three years of marriage. Together, they had a son, actor Keenan Wynn . He married his second wife, Frieda Mierse, on June 25, 1937, but would divorce her only two years later on December 12, 1939. He married his third and final wife Dorothy Elizabeth Nesbitt on July 31, 1946. She filed for divorce from Wynn on February 1, 1955, and it
7387-556: Was released by Rhino Home Video in 1992 as The Lenny Bruce Performance Film . In 1951, Bruce met Honey Harlow , a stripper from Manila, Arkansas . They were married that year, and Bruce was determined to see her stop working as a stripper. The couple left New York in 1953 for the West Coast , where they found work as a double act at the Cup and Saucer in Los Angeles . Bruce joined a bill at
7476-484: Was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy that combined satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon in 2003. Bruce forged new paths in comedy and counterculture . His trial for obscenity was a landmark of freedom of speech in the United States . In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Bruce third (behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin ) on its list of
7565-407: Was sentenced on December 21, 1964, to four months in a workhouse ; he was set free on bail during the appeals process and died before the appeal was decided. Solomon, the owner of the club where Lenny was arrested, later saw Bruce's conviction overturned. Bruce appeared on network television only six times. In his later club performances, he was known for relating the details of his encounters with
7654-470: Was subsequently donated to the Lenny Bruce audio collection at Brandeis University . Bruce left the country a few days later and spoke little about the experience. Increasing drug use also affected Bruce's health and repeated arrests further caused deterioration to his mental health. By 1966, he had been blacklisted by nearly every nightclub in the U.S. as owners feared prosecution for obscenity. He gave
7743-683: Was the first CBS variety television show to originate from Los Angeles, which was seen live on the West Coast , but filmed via kinescope for distribution in the Midwestern United States and the Eastern United States , as the national coaxial cable had yet to be completed. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC 's Four Star Revue from 1950 through 1952. After the end of Wynn's third television series, The Ed Wynn Show (a short-lived situation comedy on NBC 's 1958–59 schedule), his son, actor Keenan Wynn , encouraged him to make
7832-530: Was too cryptic and too scatological for popular taste—he nevertheless influenced a whole generation of comics, just as Stein influenced Hemingway and that generation of writers. Her own work was a dead end (so was Bruce's), but out of that compost grew the buds of a flourishing school. – Syndicated columnist Sydney J. Harris , November 5, 1969. Bruce was the subject of the 1974 biographical drama Lenny , directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffman , who
7921-451: Was with great concessions to Broadcast Standards and Practices . Jokes that might offend, like a routine on airplane- glue-sniffing teenagers that was done live for The Steve Allen Show in 1959, had to be typed out and pre-approved by network officials. On his debut on Allen's show, Bruce made an unscripted comment on the recent marriage of Elizabeth Taylor to Eddie Fisher , wondering, "Will Elizabeth Taylor become bar mitzvahed?" In
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