Sid Caesar Dead: Comedy Titan Was 91He starred in the 1950s sketch classics "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour" and influenced the likes of Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon and Woody Allen. Sid Caesar, the intelligent and yet nonsensical comic who forever changed the course of television with his groundbreaking 1950s live Saturday night variety shows
Your Show of Shows and
Caesar's Hour, has died. He was 91. His friend,
Carl Reiner, confirmed the news to
The Hollywood Reporter.
"Inarguably he was the greatest single monologist and skit comedian we ever had," Reiner said in a statement to
THR. "Television owes him a debt of gratitude for his pioneering work and the great shows he gave us all. Render onto Caesar what is his due. He deserves real applause from the American people."
Caesar, who died Wednesday at his longtime home in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills after a brief illness, was known for his physicality, improvisation, mimicry and his whimsical signature, the double-talk.
PHOTOS: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2014
Whether played out in a sketch, pantomime or a full-blown revue, Caesar's observational humor exposed the truths of everyday life. His two whirlwind variety shows produced writers and performers who set the comic agenda for decades to come -- people like Reiner,
Woody Allen,
Mel Brooks,
Neil Simon,
Larry Gelbart,
Imogene Coca,
Nanette Fabray,
Howard Morris,
Lucille Kallen,
Mel Tolkin and
Fiddler on the Roof playwright
Joseph Stein.
The proof: Reiner developed the classic 1960s sitcom
The Dick Van Dyke Show using his
Show of Shows experience for comic fodder (the Alan Brady character, played by Reiner, was modeled after Caesar). The 1982 film
My Favorite Year, a thinly disguised memoir of life with Caesar during the tumultuous era of live TV, was backed by Brooks and had
Joseph Bologna playing the Caesar-like King Kaiser. And Simon re-created the writers room tension of Caesar shows for his 1993 Broadway hit
Laughter on the 23rd Floor, starring
Nathan Lane as another Caesar stand-in, Max Prince.
In fact, it could be said that
Saturday Night Live is a direct descendant of Caesar's sketch-laden variety shows. He hosted the late-night show in 1983 and was named an honorary castmember.
“Sid Caesar was a giant -- maybe the best comedian who every practiced the trade," Brooks said in a statement. "And I was privileged to be one of his writers and one of his friends."
Caesar's live, 90-minute
Show of Shows debuted in 1950 when he was 27 and ran through 1954 in an era before cue cards and teleprompters. Its frenetic high-wire uncertainty made for great hilarity and produced back-to-back Emmy wins in 1952 and '53.
After
Your Show of Shows, which ran for 160 episodes, Caesar started
Caesar's Hour. Also live, it collected three Emmys and featured his
Show of Show mates Reiner andMorris (Coca left for her own show and was replaced by Fabray). At the time, half of all Americans who owned TV sets tuned in each week to watch the antics of Caesar and his cohorts.
Much more:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...y-titan-679817
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by mulva
