Shelley Berman


Sheldon Leonard Berman was an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, lecturer and poet.
In his comedic career, Berman was awarded three gold records and he won the first Grammy Award for a spoken comedy recording in 1959. He played Larry David's father on Curb Your Enthusiasm, a role for which he received a 2008 Emmy Award nomination.
He taught humor writing at the University of Southern California for more than 20 years.

Early life and education

Berman was born in Chicago, the son of Irene and Nathan Berman. He was Jewish.
He served in the Navy during World War II. He then enrolled in Chicago's Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago as a drama student. There he met fellow student Sarah Herman; they married in 1947. His acting career began with an acting company in Woodstock, Illinois. Leaving Woodstock in 1949, the couple made their way to New York City.. He studied acting at the HB Studio. To make ends meet, Berman found employment as a social director, cab driver, speech teacher, assistant manager of a drug store, and a dance instructor at Arthur Murray Dance Studios.
Eventually, Berman found work as a sketch writer for The Steve Allen Plymouth Show.

Career

Early career

Berman began as a straight actor, receiving his training at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, honing his acting skills in stock companies in and around Chicago and New York City.
In the mid-1950s, he became a member of Chicago's Compass Players, which later evolved into The Second City. While performing improvised sketches with Compass, Berman began to develop solo pieces, often employing an imaginary telephone to take the place of an onstage partner.

Nightclubs and live performances

In 1957, Berman was hired as a comedian at Mister Kelly's in Chicago, which led to other nightclub bookings, and a recording contract with Verve Records. His comedy albums earned him three gold records and he won the first Grammy Award for a spoken comedy recording. Berman appeared on numerous television specials and all of the major variety shows of the day.
He starred on Broadway in A Family Affair and continued with stage work in The Odd Couple, Damn Yankees, Where's Charley?, Fiddler on the Roof, Two by Two, I'm Not Rappaport, La Cage aux Folles, The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Guys & Dolls.
Berman's voice was used as the inspiration for the voice of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Fibber Fox, performed by Daws Butler.

Television career

Berman portrayed the role of Mendel Sorkin in an episode of CBS's Rawhide.
Berman also appeared fairly regularly as a panelist on the famous CBS game show What's My Line in the early and mid-1960s.
Berman performed both comedic and dramatic roles on television, including appearances on episodes of The Twilight Zone, Bewitched, Peter Gunn, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Adam-12, Emergency!, Brothers, Night Court, MacGyver, L.A. Law, Friends, Walker, Texas Ranger, The King of Queens, Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal, Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, and the revived Hawaii Five-0. He also had a recurring role on the short-lived sitcom Walter & Emily.
From 2002 to 2009, Berman appeared as Larry David's aged father on Curb Your Enthusiasm'', a role for which he received a 2008 Emmy Award nomination.

Film career

Among Berman's film credits are Dementia, The Best Man, Divorce American Style, Every Home Should Have One, Beware! The Blob, Rented Lips, Teen Witch, The Last Producer, Meet the Fockers, The Holiday, and You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Late Career

For over 20 years, Berman was a lecturer in humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. He was also a teacher for the Improv Olympics program.

Works

Film

Television

Theatre

Discography

Personal life

Berman married Sarah Herman on April 19, 1947. The two met while they were studying acting at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.
In the mid-1960s, Berman and wife Sarah adopted two children, son Joshua and daughter Rachel. The Bermans were planning Joshua's bar mitzvah when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Joshua died on October 29, 1977 at age 12.
Berman and his wife were both enthusiastic supporters of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources, and contributed their time and resources to the benefit of the facilities and the residents.
In the 1980s, the Chamber of Commerce in Canoga Park, California selected Berman to be one of the celebrities to serve a term as honorary mayor of Canoga Park.
Allegation of plagiarism
In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, Berman alleged that comedian Bob Newhart plagiarized his improvisational telephone routine style, describing its genesis and saying it was a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." He continued, "I was coming to work at night and a guy stopped his car, passed me by, and said 'Hey, Shelley! There's a guy stole your act!'" When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star."
When asked in interviews about the telephone issue, Bob Newhart noted that:
Shelley Berman did it before I did it. Mike and Elaine did a version of it. There was a thing called 'Cohen on the Telephone,' which was a very, very early recording by Edison of a guy on the phone....George Jessel had a radio show...At the end, he would call up his mother and tell her how the show had gone. As a kid growing up, I remember listening to him and he would call his mother up and say, 'Mama, this is Georgie'" – he paused, skillfully – "'from the money.'"

On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists, who dated the routine as far back as the 1920s, George Jessel who was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie." In the 30s and 40s there was this radio comedienne named Arlene Harris, often referred to as Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends." In the 50s, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made about a zillion appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris. All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman. Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material.

Death

Berman died from Alzheimer's disease-related complications at his home in Bell Canyon, California, in the early morning of September 1, 2017. He was 92 years old. His archive was donated to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.
Comedian Steve Martin praised Berman on Twitter, thanking him for "changing modern stand-up ". Marc Maron also tweeted praising "Shelley Berman has hung up the phone. RIP. The guy who inspired me to sit. Great comic."