Who Am I? June 2020
I was born in Buffalo, N.Y. and grew up in the gritty nearby mining town of Lackawanna where my dad ran a clothing store. He often sold second-hand clothes to the miners. You will be surprised to know that I was a rather shy child if you followed my later career. In high school my greatest ambition was to become a professional ballplayer and I actually got a tryout with the Chisox.
Towards the end of WWII I was drafted and served in a tank repair unit. During my time in the army I found out that I had the talent to make people laugh. When an opportunity arose to become a replacement in a U.S.O. performance I grabbed it. After my discharge I attended a Florida university for a while; however, I left to pursue a show business career.
I competed and lost an Arthur Godfrey talent contest but I did get “discovered” there by a
director who gave me my first professional acting job pairing me with the great Molly Picon in a Broadway show. I knew then that my future would be in the entertainment industry.
I made an awful lot of TV appearance as a standup comedian. You might have seen me on the Andy Williams Show, the Pat Boone Show, the Judy Garland Show, Ed Sullivan, Perry Como’s Kraft Music Hall, Steve Allen, or the Dinah Shore Chevy Show among others. I also appeared in sitcoms such as “That Girl” and “Hail to the Chief.” I worked the Catskills and Las Vegas appearing with such celebrities as Zsa Zsa, Edith Piaf and Rhonda Fleming; however, I didn’t particular like performing in front of what I called “belchers.” I found college audiences more receptive to my kind of humor. All in all, I appeared in some 30 movies and 7 Broadway productions. I also did some charity work for “Comic Relief USA” to aid the needy and especially, the homeless. During my heyday I was an in-demand speaker at the Friar Club Roasts which were held on both coasts.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s I worked up a popular one man show that is often hard to characterize. I was described as being unique, unpredictable and a little bit “out there.” I would sing and dance, do impressions, monologues, sketches and pantomimes. Nobody quite knew what I was going to do next on the stage, not even me! It must have been pretty good because my show won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award. I established the template for others who came after me especially such zany comedic improvisers as Andy Kaufman and Robin Williams.
Once I began earning a regular paycheck I became a long-time resident of Bergen County where I maintained a 14 room home in Englewood. If you’ve never seen me on stage, you probably know me best from two never-to-be forgotten movie roles. The first one you might recall was when I played a nutty, mama’s boy who worked as a lifeguard in a film that had 4 repetitive adjectives in its title. My movie mom was a real-life leatherlunged singer and she was the ‘mother-in-law from hell’ to a famous real life comedian. Here’s a quote of mine from that movie, “Mama, it’s alright. Everything’s gonna be alright. Your baby’s coming to get ya…” In my second iconic movie role I portrayed a vile, despotic, war criminal who could sing.
I suffered a fatal heart attack during a performance on stage. For almost 5 minutes nobody moved or was alarmed because the audience was convinced it was part of my off-beat stage act. Finally, paramedics were called and I was taken to a hospital where I passed away shortly thereafter. I am buried in Hillside Memorial Park in CA among many famous Jewish entertainers. In fact, Al Jolson, who some consider “the greatest entertainer in the whole wide world,” is interred not
too far away from me.
That’s me in the photos below. (1)Who Am I? (2) Who was the director that launched my
professional career and in what play did he direct me and Molly Picon? (3a)Which aforementioned film of mine had the 4 repetitive adjectives in the title? (3b)Who played my bossy, loud-mouth mom in that film? (3c)Who was my brother-in-law in that film? He thought my mom was the mother-in-law from hell! (3d) In what musical play within a film did I play a loathsome and vile dictator who could sing and what song did I sing? (4) In what 2 productions did I appear with Zero Mostel? (5)What was the name of my one man show? (6) In what hospital did I actually pass away?
