Lenny Bruce’s death was the birth of his legend. He became myth more than man. His popularity surged as a counterculture martyr. Milton Berle, Jack Benny, George Burns and Phil Spector helped pay for his funeral and, before the casket was lowered, someone tossed a microphone into the grave.
Lenny Bruce inspired the two most important male comedians of the following decade. George Carlin and Richard Pryor were compared to Lenny Bruce in the coming years. Both men idolized Bruce, and like their idol they developed unpredictable personalities that were accelerated, aggravated and ultimately amputated by vast drug use.
Richard Pryor’s television debut was in 1964 on a show called On Broadway Tonight, a low-budget summer replacement for The Danny Kaye Show. Produced by the husband of paperback superstar Jacqueline Susann, the 1964 series presented semiprofessional “discoveries.” The host was the man who had presented so many new comedians thirty years earlier—Rudy Vallee. Saul Turteltaub wrote the introductions for On Broadway Tonight. “Rudy Vallee was a strange guy. I wrote something like, ‘And now here are the people who . . .’ and Rudy said, ‘It’s not “people”—it’s “persons”! You don’t say “people”—you say “persons”!’ So Marilyn Michaels came on. She was doing an impression of Barbra Streisand and I wrote as a joke, ‘And now here is Marilyn Michaels to sing “Persons Who Need Persons.”’ The girls typed it up and it went to cue cards like that—and he read it like that! When the show was canceled, Rudy blamed me.”
Vallee introduced Richard Pryor, and his spot was solid. Pryor did a routine about growing up in Peoria, Illinois, but a vocal detractor was on the phone. Bill Cosby hated the young Richie Pryor. He was convinced he was stealing his material.
The Merv Griffin Show signed Pryor to an exclusivity deal and Cosby would phone Griffin after each segment, asking Griffin to tell him what Pryor said. Cosby made similar calls to club managers around Manhattan: “What did that kid do tonight? Everyone is telling me he’s stealing my stuff.” An early Pryor piece, a hushed dialogue between the human heart and the human brain, certainly had a similar aural quality to Cosby’s, but Cos seemed to forget that he had been roundly criticized as a Dick Gregory knockoff just eighteen months earlier. It didn’t take long for Pryor to shed the influence. When he worked as Nina Simone’s opening act at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1965, a reviewer described him as “a quiet, intense young man [with a] strange delivery, using a pattern of milking softly to force his audience to strain to hear, then belting it out in a booming transition.”
Stories started to circulate about Pryor’s unpredictable behavior. Opening for Trini Lopez at Basin Street East, Pryor walked onstage and lay on the floor. He stared at the celling and did a twenty-minute set without acknowledging the crowd. Manny Roth, manager of the Café Wha in the Village, said Pryor sprung from the stage and stabbed a heckler with a fork. The Ed Sullivan Show liked Pryor’s boyish style, but by 1966 was having trouble with him. “There was always a danger, a subtext,” Pryor’s former agent Craig Kellem told Richard Zoglin. “Is he gonna get mad? Is he gonna show up on time? The big question was, who was going to get Richard Pryor out of bed to go to dress rehearsal? Usually, you’d try to get the most naïve guy in the office to do it. Nobody else wanted to face his wrath.”
Las Vegas called and paid him three thousand dollars a week, but Jim Crow had barely dissipated in the desert and he hated appeasing white tourists. “I was doing material that was not funny to me,” said Pryor. “It was Mickey Mouse material that I couldn’t stomach anymore. In Vegas, my audience was mostly white and I had to cater to their tastes. I did a lot of that in those days. I wanted to do more black material, but I had people around me telling me to wait until I had really made it. I knew I had to get away from people who thought like that.”
Pryor opened for Pat “the Hip Hypnotist” Collins at the Aladdin Hotel. “I told neat little inoffensive chickenshit stories. I thought that because it was safe, it would also be commercial. I was wrong. Couldn’t have been wronger. What I was doing was phony. I was turning into plastic.” In rebellion Pryor used forbidden cusswords like “damn” and “shit.” The hotel complained about his material and told him to remove his routine about the wino who knew God personally. For seventeen consecutive shows Pryor fought with himself. Legend has it that he finally walked up to the microphone, asked the crowd, “What the fuck am I doing here?” and walked off.
“Comedian Richard Pryor was fired Sunday night by the Aladdin Hotel because of alleged obscenities he directed toward the audience several times during his seventeen day stand,” Variety reported. “Entertainment director Dick Kanellis dismissed Pryor after taping his show, during which time Pryor uttered obscene language following four previous warnings during engagement.”
This is often pegged as the moment of Richard Pryor’s transformation from carbon Cosby to comedic artist, but his collaborator, fellow stand-up Paul Mooney, said it was a few more years before the new Richard Pryor emerged. Mooney and Pryor frequented the Redd Foxx Club on La Cienega, and it was there Pryor shed the old influence and found a new one. “I dropped out for a while to take a look into myself,” said Pryor. “And I kept watching Redd. He was the epitome. He was doing it all—being himself on stage, pulling no punches, a totally no-bullshit act. Wherever he worked, he was always Redd Foxx. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be working clean. He has got to be the greatest fucking corrupter of youth since Socrates. I tell you, before I worked Redd’s club, I didn’t know shit. But he taught me how to say shit and piss and fuck and motherfuck and all of them God-forbid words.”
Edward Albee. The vaudeville mogul aligned himself with church groups to crush competitors, smearing them as immoral.
B. F. Keith’s New Theatre, p. 48/Wikimedia Commons
The Ziegfeld Follies made big stars of comedians, including Eddie Cantor, here in blackface.
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-29109]
The “presentation house” appeared ornate but backstage was a different story. In most, a forty-five-minute stage show featuring an orchestra, a singer, a dance team and a comedian preceded the latest movie.
left: The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [HABS OHIO,25-COLB,4—24]
right: The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [HABS OHIO,25-COLB,4—61]
Bert Williams was comedy’s first major African American star.
left: Photograph by Samuel Lumiere, courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-64934]
right: Photograph by Samuel Lumiere, courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-64924]
The Marx Brothers toured vaudeville before finding legitimacy on Broadway in sketch comedy revues.
Photofest
Comedians were even miserable in the 1930s; L-R: RKO film comedy team Bert Wheeler & Robert Woolsey, young comedian Milton Berle, flash-in-the-pan radio comic Joe Penner, and two vaudeville comedians turned character actors—Victor Moore and Benny Rubin.
Come Backstage with Me by Benny Rubin (Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972)
George Jessel started out in a “schoolroom act.”
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-38802]
Buster Keaton played vaudeville as a baby, performing in comedy’s most violent act, The Three Keatons.
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-ggbain-32451]
Fred Allen was the most cynical of all radio comedians.
NBC Radio/Wikimedia Commons
Bert “the Mad Russian” Gordon and Eddie Cantor
NBC Radio/Wikimedia Commons
Frank Fay was regarded as the first stand-up comedian.<
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NBC Radio/Wikimedia Commons
Eddie “Rochester” Anderson was the highest-paid African American comedian of the 1940s and 1950s.
NBC Radio/Wikimedia Commons
Comedian Joe E. Lewis had his throat slashed by the Mafia in the late 1920s and miraculously survived.
Photograph by Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Bob Hope was one of the first comedians to employ a large staff of writers.
Photofest
1950s Las Vegas was a boom town for comedians. Milton Berle and others made enormous sums for a week’s work.
Photograph by Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Comedian Harry Einstein was seated next to Berle when he dropped dead at a Friar’s Club roast.
Los Angeles Herald-Express/Wikimedia Commons
Jerry Lewis had the most expensive talk show failure in television history.
NBC Television/Wikimedia Commons
Jack Benny with a young Johnny Carson in 1955.
CBS Television/Wikimedia Commons
Those writing for Sid Caesar throughout the 1950s became legends. Working on Caesar’s Hour: Gary Belkin, Sheldon Keller, Michael Stewart, Mel Brooks; back row: Neil Simon, Mel Tolkin, Larry Gelbart.
© NBC, courtesy of Photofest
Lindy’s was the preeminent hangout for comedy stars in the 1940s and 1950s. Broadway caricaturist Al Hirschfeld immortalized the Lindy’s comedians with this memorable portrait.
© Hirschfeld. Reproduction by arrangement with Hirschfeld’s exclusive representative, the MARGO FEIDEN GALLERIES LTD., NEW YORK. www.alhirschfeld.com
Dean Martin was one half of comedy team Martin & Lewis.
Photograph by Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Don Rickles at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach shortly after his career took off.
Courtesy of the Pauly Cohen Collection
Shelley Berman was lumped in with 1950s “Sick Comedians” Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl and Jonathan Winters.
Photofest
Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko on The Phil Silvers Show
© CBS, courtesy of Photofest
The comedy team Jim, Jake and Joan featured a young Joan Rivers. She went solo after six months.
Photograph by James Kriegsmann/Fredana Management/Ashley-Steiner Famous Artists, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Satirist Stan Freberg had several hit novelty singles for Capitol Records, leading to his own CBS radio program in 1957.
Wikimedia Commons
Dick Gregory was the first African American comedian to talk about the civil rights struggle to the white masses.
Photograph by Herman Hiller, courtesy of the New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection/ Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-121425]
Dooto Records was a Black-owned doowop label from South Central Los Angeles. They created the genre known as comedy records when they released a Redd Foxx stand-up LP in 1956. They pressed countless African American comedy albums.
Dooto Records
Jack Paar was the second host of The Tonight Show. Here he welcomes President Kennedy.
ABC Television/Wikimedia Commons
Johnny Carson took over The Tonight Show in 1962 and frequently used Woody Allen as both a guest and guest host.
NBC Television/Wikimedia Commons
The Dick Cavett Show portrayed the social unrest in America at the time, and Cavett, here with Dick Van Dyke, was the great comedy nerd of his era.
© ABC, courtesy of Photofest
Lenny Bruce being searched for drugs in 1961.
Examiner Press/Wikimedia Commons
The Smothers Brothers were among many artists who—after ingesting marijuana and LSD—had a change in perspective.
William Morris Agency/Wikimedia Commons
Lorne Michaels was in a comedy team with Hart Pomerantz from 1967 to 1972.
© CBC Still Photo Collection
Phyllis Diller was the bridge between the elder Jean Carroll and the younger Joan Rivers.
Verve/Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division [Verve V-15031]
In 1962, Vaughn Meader had the highest-selling comedy record of all time, doing his impression of President Kennedy. When the president was assassinated, Meader plunged into a mental breakdown.
© Bettmann/CORBIS
Jackie Gleason, here at Miami Beach, was accused of plagiarizing The Honeymooners from Philip Rapp’s The Bickersons and of swiping the “Away We Go” catchphrase from comedian Frankie Hyers.
CBS Television/Wikimedia Commons
Jonathan Winters was considered the most inventive comedian of his generation.
© CBS, courtesy of Photofest
Moms Mabley was a headliner at the Apollo in Harlem as early as 1934 and one of the only female stand-up comics of her era.
CBS Television/Wikimedia Commons
Mike Nichols and Elaine May were a sensation in the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of the new, coffeehouse comedians.
© NBC, courtesy of Photofest
George Carlin, who inspired legions of stand-ups, made no secret that LSD changed his style.
Photofest
Flip Wilson and Redd Foxx. Wilson was the first African American comedian with his own television series. Richard Pryor and George Carlin were among his writers.
© NBC, courtesy of Photofest
Richard Pryor, who many consider the greatest stand-up of all time
© NBC, courtesy of Photofest
Eddie Murphy, impersonating
Bill Cosby on Saturday Night Live
© NBC, courtesy of Photofest
Richard Lewis and Larry David at the Playboy Club
Courtesy of Larry David
Louis C.K. toiled during the Comedy Boom and was largely responsible for the temperament of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
Stephen Colbert, here on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, was once Steve Carrell’s understudy at Second City.
© Comedy Central, photo by Norman Jean Roy, courtesy of Photofest
Robin Williams and David Letterman started together as stand-up comics in 1975 at The Comedy Store.
© CBS, courtesy of Photofest
CHAPTER NINE
Hippie Madness
at Decade’s End
The 1960s were the last decade organized crime dominated nightclubs. Corporate governance in Las Vegas—and aggressive federal governance elsewhere—chipped away at its omnipotence. The relationship between comedians and organized crime eroded in the 1970s. Some who’d been chummy with the Mob for a generation started to change their track when Friars Club members were scammed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Mobsters Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Fratianno called the Friars Club of Beverly Hills home for several years. They shared cigars with Milton Berle, Tony Martin and Phil Silvers. Nobody thought anything of it. Show people had long accepted the presence of the Mob in their lives. When the West Coast Friars Club moved into a new building in the 1960s, construction was overseen by Las Vegas contacts, and Roselli and Fratianno hired electronic surveillance experts to do an additional job: An electronic eye was clandestinely installed in the ceiling of the new game room. It would expose the hand of every gambling-addicted Friars member for the next five years, nearly bankrupting Zeppo Marx, Phil Silvers and businessman Harry Karl in the process.
A series of complicated hand codes was developed between Roselli, Fratianno and their spy in the sky. It was several years of bad luck for the Friars, as the Mob won hand after hand. Eventually the winning streak made Friars with Vegas experience—like Silver Slipper operator T. Warner Richardson—rather suspicious. Richardson started asking questions
of Roselli and Fratianno. In order to silence him, they cut him in on the scam. Meanwhile, Phil Silvers continued to lose thousands of dollars every time he played a round.
After five profitable years, the cover was blown. A mobster held by the FBI tipped them off in exchange for amnesty. Johnny Roselli, T. Warner Richardson, Benjamin Teitelbaum, Manuel Jacobs and Maurice H. Friedman were arrested. Roselli was found guilty on forty-nine felony accounts and sentenced to five years in prison. He phoned another Vegas contact—billionaire Howard Hughes—and asked him to pay his legal expenses. The members of the Friars Club were embarrassed. They had been played for fools. Phil Silvers said, “I was terribly shocked to find all this out. It’s despicable. It’s sickening. It’ll take the club years to recover.”
Attorney General Robert Kennedy attacked the Mob in the 1960s, picking up where Senator Kefauver left off. Nevada’s laxity regarding organized crime was starting to embarrass state officials. Life magazine ran a Mafiosi series painting Las Vegas as the Mob’s favorite playground, humiliating Governor Paul Laxalt. After years of turning a blind eye, the Nevada Gaming Commission was denying licenses to those with suspected Mob ties. The Mob was furious with Robert Kennedy. It had a long-standing relationship with Bobby’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy. The elder Kennedy’s fortune was based on his investments in the liquor business during Prohibition. His associates were frequently members of the Mob, and he always got along with them. So it came as a shock when Bobby attacked them. Sam Giancana asked, “What the fuck is wrong with that Kennedy brat? Can you believe that little bastard Kennedy is gonna go for the throat? It doesn’t make sense. Are they fucking nuts?”
The Comedians Page 28