Monty Hall, the genial host and co-creator of "Let's Make a Deal," the game show on which contestants in outlandish costumes shriek and leap at the chance to see if they will win the big prize or the booby prize behind door No. 3, died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Saturday. He was 96.
A daughter, Joanna Gleason, confirmed his death. She said the cause was heart failure.
"Let's Make a Deal" had its premiere in late 1963 and, with some interruptions, has been a television phenomenon ever since.
When Mr. Hall first roamed among the audience members who filled the "trading floor" in an NBC studio in Burbank, Calif., there was nothing zany about them.
"They came to the show in the first week in suits and dresses," Mr. Hall told The Los Angeles Times in 2013.
Within weeks, however, things had changed.
By one account, the turning point came when a woman in the audience, vying for Mr. Hall's attention with hopes of being chosen as a contestant, wore a bizarre-looking hat.
Mr. Hall recalled it somewhat differently in 2013: The game changer, he said, was a woman carrying a sign that said, "Roses are red, violets are blue, I came here to deal with you."
Whatever it was that opened the floodgates, would-be deal makers were soon showing up wearing live-bird hats, Tom Sawyer costumes or boxes resembling refrigerators. Some simply waved signs pleading, "Pick Me."
It was all for the chance to barter their way to a big prize. A woman might sell Mr. Hall the contents of her handbag for $150, and then agree to trade that $150 for whatever was behind a curtain, or in a big box, in the hope that it was something valuable — say, a $759 refrigerator-freezer stocked with $25 worth of cottage cheese and a $479 sewing machine.
She could then compound her glee by being smart enough not to trade it all back for the old purse and whatever amount of cash Mr. Hall had slipped into it — maybe a hefty amount or maybe a measly $27. If she went for the deal that turned out to be a loser, she was, in the language of the show, zonked.
At the end of the show, the two biggest winners were given a shot at the Big Deal. They could trade their winnings for whatever was behind one of three doors: a new car, perhaps, or $15,000 in cash, or, if they were not so lucky, something worth less than what they had traded. All the while, the affable, smooth-talking Mr. Hall gave no hint of where the treasure might lie.
"Monty had to be a very likable con man; he had to convince people to give up a bird in the hand for what's in the box," David Schwartz, the author, with Fred Wostbrock and Steve Ryan, of "The Encyclopedia of TV Game Shows," said in an interview.
Mr. Hall had other responsibilities, too, Mr. Schwartz added: "He had to be a traffic cop, to get a decision out of the contestant without taking a long time. With his great ability to ad-lib, he knew how to keep the show moving."
Mr. Hall kept "Let's Make a Deal" moving for most of almost 5,000 broadcasts on NBC, on ABC and in syndication. The show ended its original daytime run in 1976 on ABC. A concurrent syndicated nighttime version lasted until the next year.
"Let's Make a Deal" became such a pop-culture phenomenon that it gave birth to a well-known brain-twister in probability, called "the Monty Hall Problem." This thought experiment involves three doors, two goats and a coveted prize and leads to a counterintuitive solution.
The show itself could give rise to the unexpected. "You get some strange moments," Mr. Hall said in 2009. He recalled the day that a contestant was zonked when he chose a curtain behind which he had hoped was a car.
"It was an elephant," Mr. Hall continued. "It freaked — ran backstage, down a ramp and out into the streets of L.A. That's probably the wildest moment."
Mr. Hall had his proud moments as well. In 1973 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1988, Mr. Hall, who was born in Canada, was named to the Order of Canada by that country's government in recognition of the millions he had raised for a host of charities. In 2013 he was presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Daytime Emmys.
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Aug. 25, 1921, Monte Halparin (he later changed the spelling of his first name and took the stage name Hall) was one of two sons of Maurice Halparin, a butcher, and the former Rose Rusen, a teacher.
He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry and zoology from the University of Manitoba. But, smitten by applause while appearing in college musicals, he moved to Toronto and began working as an actor and singer. In 1955 he moved again, this time to New York, where he became a regular on "Monitor," a mix of comedy, music, sports and news on NBC Radio.
Five years later, Mr. Hall moved to Hollywood to host "Video Village," a CBS TV show on which contestants played the role of "tokens" on a human-size game board. He teamed with the writer and producer Stefan Hatos to create "Let's Make a Deal" in 1963.
Mr. Hall is survived by a show-business family: two daughters, Joanna Gleason, a Tony Award-winning actress, and Sharon Hall, a television executive; a son, Richard, a producer who won an Emmy for "The Amazing Race"; a brother, Robert Hall, a lawyer; and five grandchildren. His wife of almost 70 years, the former Marilyn Plottel, an Emmy Award-winning television producer, died in June.
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It is with tremendous sadness that we learn of the passing of Raymond Buckland. He was a pioneer, teacher, and mentor to literally thousands and helped so many with his wise words. Above all, he will be remembered as a great friend to Llewellyn and the Weschcke family for decades.
His teachings and legacy will live on in his many books and articles.
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Courtesy of: Playboy Enterprises Hugh Hefner, the iconic founder of Playboy magazine, died at his home, the Playboy Mansion, of natural causes at age 91, Playboy Enterprisessaid in a statement on Wednesday.
Playboy magazine was founded more than 60 years ago to create a niche upscale men's magazine, combining images of nude women with in-depth articles, interviews and fiction by a variety of well-known writers.
"My father lived an exceptional and impactful life as a media and cultural pioneer and a leading voice behind some of the most significant social and cultural movements of our time in advocating free speech, civil rights and sexual freedom," Cooper Hefner, Playboy Enterprises' chief creative officer and Hugh's son, said in the statement.
"He defined a lifestyle and ethos that lie at the heart of the Playboy brand, one of the most recognizable and enduring in history," the younger Hefner said.
While the magazine managed to both inspire and ride the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 70s, in recent years it has struggled in the face of tough competition from the availability of free pornography online.
For a brief period from mid-2016 through early 2017, the magazine experimented with avoiding nudity, before returning to its previous formula.
The statement said Playboy magazine was aimed at more than the market for nude images.
"Hefner took a progressive approach not only to sexuality and humor, but also to literature, politics and culture," the statement said, calling the "Playboy Interview," or an extensive discussion between a well-known person and an interviewer, a "standard setter."
Hefner also led free-speech battles in the U.S., fighting all the way to the Supreme Court after the U.S. Post Office refused to deliver his magazine, the statement noted.
Hefner was survived by his wife, Crystal, his sons, Cooper, David and Marston, and his daughter, Christie, the statement said.
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Former James Brown impersonator became late-in-life star with impassioned vocals and exuberant live performances
Charles Bradley, the acclaimed soul singer and exuberant live performer who saw his career ascend late in life, died Saturday following a bout with stomach and liver cancer. He was 68. "It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Charles Bradley," the singer's rep said in a statement. "Always a fighter, Charles battled cancer with everything he had. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the fall of 2016 and underwent treatment. Bradley headed out on the road earlier this year after receiving a clean bill of health but the cancer recently returned, spreading to his liver."
Bradley's reps added, "Thank you for your prayers during this difficult time. Mr. Bradley was truly grateful for all the love he's received from his fans and we hope his message of love is remembered and carried on."
"The world lost a ton of heart today," Gabriel Roth, co-founder of Bradley's label Daptone Records, said. "Charles was somehow one of the meekest and strongest people I've ever known. His pain was a cry for universal love and humanity. His soulful moans and screams will echo forever on records and in the ears and hearts of those who were fortunate enough to share time with him.
"I find some solace knowing that he will continue to inspire love and music in this world for generations to come," he added. "I told him as much a few days ago. He smiled and told me, 'I tried.' It was probably the simplest and most inspiring thing he ever told me. I think he wanted to hug each person on this planet individually. I mean that literally, and anyone that ever saw him knows that he honestly tried."
"RIP to our dear brother Charles Bradley," veteran Afrobeat group and Daptone Records labelmate Antibalas wrote on Twitter. "Your heart was too big for this planet. See you on the other side. We love you."
Over the course of three albums – 2011's No Time for Dreaming, 2013's Victim of Love and 2016's Changes – Bradley, known as the "Screaming Eagle of Soul," blended heartfelt ballads of love, longing and remorse with raucous tracks celebrating joy and the survival of a hardscrabble life.
Charles Edward Bradley was born November 5th, 1948 in Florida but his mother, who had left for New York, moved Bradley to Brooklyn when he was 8 years old. At 14, Bradley left home and became homeless, sleeping on New York subway trains for warmth. "I was afraid that she was going to hurt me, so I left," Bradley said of his mother in the 2012 documentary Charles Bradley: Soul of America. "We couldn't see eye to eye and I was getting blamed for everything, so I was very bitter."
In 1962, Bradley's sister took him to James Brown's landmark performance at the Apollo Theater. The show transformed Bradley, who would later find regional success in New York as a James Brown impersonator named Black Velvet.
Charles Bradley as Black Velvet: A Tribute to James Brown [LIVE]
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Charles Bradley as Black Velvet: A Tribute to James Brown, backed by Jimmy Hill & The Allstarz Band, live at Man... |
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"It was breathtaking," Bradley told Rolling Stone of the Apollo show in 2016. "I didn't know who James Brown really was but I wanted to go see. When they called James Brown onstage, I'll never forget they had this purple light and yellow light – my two favorite colors. And when they introduced him, he came flying on the stage on one leg and I said, 'What in the hell is this?' [Laughs] And I was mesmerized. I was just gone. I was just shocked. Shocked. I said, 'Wow. I wanna be something like that.'"
The fledgling impersonator went home, attached string to a broom to emulate Brown's bombastic mic swings, and began impersonating the singer in private before performing his first show as Brown at age 19 in 1967. "I was really scared to do it, so they snuck a bottle of gin [laughs] in the gym with 7-Up in it, and I got fired up," he told Rolling Stone. "I said, 'Give me that mic!' ... I ain't never stopped yet." A drifter as a teen who battled with illiteracy, poverty and chronic unemployment, the Brooklyn singer would later nearly die from a penicillin allergy and find his brother murdered by Bradley's own nephew. Bradley became an itinerant after leaving home, traveling across the country in 1977 after spending 10 years as a cook at a Maine hospital for the mentally ill before ending up in California. Shows would come occasionally, but Bradley was unable to find any success in music at the time. After getting laid off from his job after 17 years in 1994, Bradley reconnected with his estranged mother Inez, moving back to Brooklyn to take care of her.
At the time, Bradley nearly died from an allergy. "I was sick as a dog," he said in Soul of America. "I was close to death. I'm allergic to penicillin and they was feeding me penicillin and my body had shut down." After recovering, his brother Joseph told him, "Now do something that you want to do. Follow your dreams. You love music. Do it." As documented in Soul of America, the singer was a functional illiterate, able to read at a first-grade level and seeing a tutor weekly to improve his reading skills.
Shortly after his hospitalization, Bradley endured one of the biggest tragedies of his life when his older brother Joseph was robbed and murdered by one of Bradley's nephews. "I stopped dead; I blocked it out of my head," Bradley told Okayplayer in 2011. "I said 'Lord, please don't let it be true.' ... I went down screaming." Bradley detailed the event in 2011's "Heartaches and Pain," singing, "I woke up this morning/My momma she was cryin/So i looked out my window/Police lights was flashing/People was screaming/So i ran down to the street/My friends grabbed my shoulder/And he said these words to me: Life is full of sorrow." With his brother's call to "follow his dreams" echoing in his head, Bradley eked out a living in New York clubs covering Brown, incorporating wigs and costumes he would hand-sew himself. (During the day, Bradley worked as a handyman to make ends meet.) Roth saw one of Bradley's shows and introduced him to label producer-musician Tom Brenneck, who would go on to produce all three Bradley albums. "I'll carry that man in my heart for the rest of my life," Brenneck said in a statement. In 2011, Bradley released his debut album No Time for Dreaming with the Menahan Street Band after a string of singles. The album, which included the galvanizing "The World (Is Going Up in Flames)," was named by Rolling Stone as one of the 50 Best Albums of the Year. "Don't tell me how to live my life / When you never felt the pain," Bradley sings. https://youtu.be/moiUyFQQE-0
"I been struggling for over 42 years trying to make it in the industry," he said in Soul of America. "And at the age of 62, I'm just beginning to find my way through. I never made enough money to support myself in music, but I'm hoping that this album will make a turning point for me ... I ask myself why it took so long, but you can't question God when he want to do things."Victim of Love, with its unlikely hit "Strictly Reserved for You," would follow in 2013, earning near-universal critical acclaim and bolstering Bradley's status as a soul star with unmatched authenticity.
Charles Bradley "Strictly Reserved for You"
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From the latest album, Victim of Love. Order it now at the Daptone Shop: http://bit.ly/1MDqvWa or iTunes: http:/... |
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Bradley's final album, Changes, arrived in 2016, taking its title from a cover on the album of Black Sabbath's 1972 ballad. Bradley hadn't heard of the heavy metal pioneers, but connected with Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler's personal lyrics about transformation as Bradley watched his mom's health deteriorate.
"The verse that really stuck to me was, 'It took so long to realize/That I can still hear her last goodbyes/Now all my days are filled with tears/Wish I could go back and change these years,'" Bradley told Rolling Stone. "Because it was like my mom saying she was sick and she was leaving me and something about that song … I just took the last lyrics and wow. So I got stuck on it. I didn't really have to 'learn' it; it just stuck to my brain."
The minimalist video, shot shortly after Bradley's mom's death, consists solely of a close-up one-shot of the singer at his most vulnerable.
OFFICIAL VIDEO: Charles Bradley "Changes"
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From Charles Bradley's latest album, Changes, out now! Directed by Eric Feigenbaum @egopuppets Produced by Jessi... |
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As fiery and poignant as Bradley could be on record, his live shows allowed the singer to both channel his decades of adoration for Brown alongside his own boisterous flourishes. Like labelmate Sharon Jones, a Charles Bradley show balanced the flamboyant with the crestfallen, alternating between elated party and a singer's catharsis laid bare in public. Bradley was a relentlessly transfixing presence onstage, able to quiet an entire audience with a ballad before turning a crowd frenzied with full-stage dancing and a deep, full-throated roar. Charles Bradley - This love ain't big enough - live in Paris 07.2011
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Charles Bradley Live in la Maroquinerie, Paris - 5th of july 2011 www.thecharlesbradley.com Thanks to Daptone & ... |
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Last year, doctors discovered a cancerous tumor in his stomach, forcing Bradley to cancel his fall tour. "I will fight through this like I've fought through the many other obstacles in my life," Bradley said at the time. "Music is how I share my love with the world, and the love that my fans have given back brings me so much joy." Earlier this month, the cancer metastasized to his liver.
"I love all of you out there that made my dreams come true," Bradley said earlier this month. "When I come back, I'll come back strong, with God's love. With God's will, I'll be back soon."
"Right now, I don't see a stopping point 'cause I don't see no place where I can stop at and rest in peace," he told Rolling Stone last year. "But I know that from doing shows for the public, the love when I go out into the audience and hug 'em and the things that they say to me personally … [pauses] Wow. It's not only me onstage doing it. I open their hearts up and they feel the love of my heart and when I go out there and really respond to 'em and talk to 'em, they tell me some things."
Toward the end of Soul of America, Bradley cried when discussing his place in the world. "Sometimes I say, 'God, just call me home.' Because every day I get out and I fight and fight the keep the honesty [and] the decency of a human being walking the planet and loving everybody as God asked you to love everybody," Bradley said. "How much more can one give before they find love on the planet? I say, 'Father, when the time of the hour you want me, I'm ready to go.' And before I leave this world, I say, 'Let the world know they can't change me ... I love everybody. I never do nobody no harm.'"
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Harry Dean Stanton -- who had iconic roles in "Godfather II," "Pretty in Pink," "Alien" and "Escape from New York" -- has died ... TMZ has learned.
Harry Dean died peacefully Friday afternoon at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in L.A. The legendary actor's career spanned more than 6 decades. His credits also include "Repo Man," "Cool Hand Luke," "Paris, Texas," "Alien," "Wild at Heart" and "Twin Peaks."
https://youtu.be/3YVfvvCZxfw
Harry Dean's final performance will be seen in "Lucky," which is set to air later this month. He's also appeared in HBO's "Big Love" as a polygamist patriarch.
Stanton was in the Navy in WWII and fought in the Battle of Okinawa.
Harry Dean was a talented musician who sang and played guitar. He performed for years with The Harry Dean Stanton Band.
TMZ used to see Stanton frequently at Dan Tana's in WeHo and he was always great to our photogs.
Harry Dean is survived by some family. He was a lifelong bachelor. Harry Dean was 91. RIP.The Repo Code - Repo Man (4/10) Movie CLIP (1984) HD
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Repo Man movie clips: http://j.mp/15vV5ON BUY THE MOVIE: http://amzn.to/t3spJl Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILE... |
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Critically lauded actor Frank Vincent, who had a key role on "The Sopranos" and appeared in a number of Martin Scorsese films, has died at age 78.
The actor had a heart attack last week and subsequent open heart surgery on Wednesday in New Jersey. He passed away during the surgery.
Vincent was perhaps best known for his role as Phil Leotardo on "The Sopranos," a captain within the Lupertazzi Family. After the death of boss Carmine, he became boss of the family, often to Tony Soprano's annoyance. His murder aduring the series finale was the final murder of the series, save for the implied death of Soprano himself.
Vincent often starred as a gangster, landing roles in "Goodfellas" and "Casino," both by Martin Scorsese. In total, he appeared in more than fifty feature films over the years.
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I am heartbroken at this news.Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted bassist-guitarist's partnership with Donald Fagen yielded classic LPs like 'Aja,' 'Katy Lied' and 'Pretzel Logic'
Read Donald Fagen's Moving Tribute to Steely Dan Partner Walter Becker "I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band," Fagen promises of Becker's legacy
Becker's official site announced the death; no cause of death or other details were provided.
"Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967," Donald Fagen wrote in a tribute to Becker. "He was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny."
Becker missed Steely Dan's Classic East and West concerts in July as he recovered from an unspecified ailment. "Walter's recovering from a procedure and hopefully he'll be fine very soon," Fagen told Billboard at the time. Becker's doctor advised the guitarist not to leave his Maui home for the performances.
Becker and Fagen first became collaborators when they were both students at New York's Bard College. After working as songwriters (Barbra Streisand's "I Mean to Shine") and members of Jay and the Americans' backing band, the duo moved to California in the early Seventies to form Steely Dan – named after a sex toy in William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch – alongside guitarists Jeff "Skunk" Baxter and Denny Dias, drummer Jim Hodder and singer David Palmer.
Following the release of their debut 1972 LP Can't Buy a Thrill, the lineup would change again with Palmer's exit; while Steely Dan would routinely rotate musicians, Becker and Fagen remained the group's core members. Despite the ever-changing lineup, Steely Dan made their stamp on music with a string of pristine, sophisticated albums with "calculated and literary lyrics" that blurred the lines of jazz, pop, rock and soul.
"I'm not interested in a rock/jazz fusion," Becker told Rolling Stone in 1974. "That kind of marriage has so far only come up with ponderous results. We play rock & roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz."
He added, "I learned music from a book on piano theory. I was only interested in knowing about chords. From that, and from the Harvard Dictionary of Music, I learned everything I wanted to know." With Becker on bass, Can't Buy a Thrill produced the hits "Reelin' in the Years," "Dirty Work" and "Do It Again." Countdown to Ecstasy followed in 1973 with Fagen now entrenched as lead singer. Following 1974's Pretzel Logic – which yielded the band's biggest hit, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" – the band experienced a major upheaval as in-demand touring musicians Dias, Baxter and Hodder all exited the quintet. "It was unfair of us to spend eight months writing and recording when Jeffrey Baxter and others in the group wanted to tour," Becker told Rolling Stonein 1977. "We weren't making very much money and everybody wanted to be out touring a lot. We didn't. That was that."
For 1975's Katy Lied, the now-duo – with Becker also picking up guitar duties – surrounded themselves with a team of expert studio musicians that included Toto's Jeff Porcaro, guitarist Hugh McCracken and Michael McDonald. "We don't feel it's something to be ashamed of," Becker said of Steely Dan's "enlarged-band concept." "We had outside players on the first album. The Beatles did it quite a bit, by their own admission. A lot of things Eric Clapton played…everyone thought it was George Harrison."
With that "supergroup" structure in place – the album features contributions from McDonald, the Eagles' Timothy B. Schmit, drummer Jim Keltner and legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter – Steely Dan released their masterpiece Aja in 1977. The album, one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, features classics like "Peg," "Deacon Blues" and "Aja" and became the duo's first platinum album, selling over 5 million copies and peaking at Number Three on the Billboard 200. As their manager Irving Azoff told Rolling Stone in 1977, "Think of the biggest American supergroups. Fleetwood Mac. The Eagles, Chicago... And Steely Dan. Everybody knows Steely Dan. They belong in that list. All we had to do was make it official." Despite the success, the duo would dissolve their partnership within three years, following the release of 1980's Gaucho.
It would be another 20 years – with the release of 2000's Two Against Nature – that Becker and Fagen would record another Steely Dan album. That LP ultimately won four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The band would record one more studio album, 2003's Everything Must Go, with Becker making his Steely Dan lead vocal debut on the track "Slang of Ages."
When asked by Time Out in 2008 about "Deacon Blues" sneaking onto classic rock radio, Becker said, "That's sort of what we wanted to do, conquer from the margins, sort of find our place in the middle based on the fact that we were creatures of the margin and of alienation, and I think that a lot of kids our age were very alienated. To this day when I read some text that somebody writes about alienation, I always think to myself, 'Gee, they make it sound like it's a bad thing!' So yeah, I think that's great. Naturally that's very satisfying to us to hear that something has slipped through the cracks."
In 2001, Steely Dan were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "The musical tradition that Steely Dan represent is certainly one that's more cerebral and intellectual and beautiful as well," Moby said in his induction speech for the duo. "Although they always seemed to approach popular culture with a certain sense of irony and distaste, they also clearly have a love for beauty and beautiful music."
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Famed stand-up comic Shelley Berman, who recently played Larry David's father on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," has died. He was 92.
Berman died early Friday morning due to complications from Alzheimer's Disease at his home in Bell Canyon, Calif., his publicist confirmed to Variety. The Grammy winner and Emmy-nominated actor was one of the most successful stand-up comedians of the 1950s and '60s. His 1959 live record, "Inside Shelley Berman," was the first comedy album to be certified gold (with more than 500,000 sales) and was the first non-musical recording to win a Grammy Award. Two other albums, "Outside Shelley Berman" and "The Edge of Shelley Berman," also went gold.Berman was the first stand-up comic to perform at Carnegie Hall. He appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" more than 20 times and was a guest on shows hosted by Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. The Chicago native trained as a serious actor before jumping into comedy as a nightclub performer. His signature bit was to sit cross-legged on a bar stool, act as if he were on the telephone, and improvise long, complicated, one-sided conversations.
Berman appeared as Nat David on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" between 2002 and 2009, and received an Emmy nomination in 2008. He retired from performing in 2014.
Berman broke into show business in 1943 after his discharge from the U.S. Navy and enrolled at Chicago's Goodman Theatre acting school. One of his routines involved portraying his own father when the then-18-year-old Shelley called home to ask for $100 for acting school.
While at Goodman, he met Sarah Herman and they were married in 1947. Berman worked a series of summer stock and odd jobs, and eventually sold a sketch to Steve Allen for his "Tonight" show. Through Martin Landau, Berman got a gig at Chicago's improvisational Compass Players group, working alongside Mike Nichols and Elaine May, where he began to develop his famous phone-call routines.
In 1962, Berman participated in NBC's documentary-style television show "Comedian Backstage," where cameras followed him as he prepared for and performed his nightclub act. The cameras caught Berman becoming angry when a telephone backstage started ringing during his act, which dimmed his popularity for quite some time. But he was able to cross over into film and TV, compiling an extensive resume during the next five decades.
Berman appeared in the 1964 film, "The Best Man" with Henry Fonda, followed by "Divorce American Style," "Every Home Should Have One," "Teen Witch," "The Last Producer," "Meet the Fockers," "The Aristocrats," "The Holiday and "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." TV credits included "Peter Gunn," "The Twilight Zone," "Rawhide," "Bewitched," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Adam-12," "MacGyver," "L.A. Law," "Friends," " The Bernie Mac Show," "Grey's Anatomy," "Entourage," and "Hawaii Five-0" for his final credit in 2012. He made numerous recurring guest appearances as the semi-senile Judge Robert Sanders on "Boston Legal" between 2004 and 2008 Berman said in his introduction to his 2013 poetry book, "To Laughter With Questions," "I have always written. As a kid growing up in Chicago, I wrote stories for my own amusement. Along the way, I read and appreciated poetry, but never really tried my hand at writing it until late in my 'other' career, teaching writing in USC's master of professional writing program."
Berman taught at USC for more than 20 years with producer-director Jason Reitman among his students. He also volunteered at the Motion Picture & Television Fund in Woodland Hills, Calif., teaching a poetry class. His class was documented in the 2007 short film "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over."
Berman is survived by his wife of 70 years; his daughter Rachel Berman; and two grandsons.
Here's the Facebook post announcing the news of Berman's death on his official Facebook fan group page:
Shelley passed away this morning at 1:24 a.m., at his home in Bell Canyon, CA, due to complications from Alzheimer's. He was 92 years old. He slipped away peacefully, in his sleep, with no pain, as far as his hospice care workers could tell.
Right now, I'm a bit of a wreck, having spent much of the last couple of hours crying, pacing, being unable to concentrate, and, frankly, being conflicted as to how I should feel about all of this. I will have more to say in this group in the days ahead, but Sarah (who I just spoke to) wanted me to let all of Shelley's Facebook fans know about Shelley's passing. Sarah loves the fact that Shelley has so many devoted followers on social media.
There will be a private service for family and close friends, followed by a public memorial. I will provide details as they are finalized.
I'm going to leave it here for now, and I want all of you to please enjoy one of my favorite photos of Shelley, taken in Palm Beach, Florida, in the early '60s — a star in his dressing room before showtime!
I love you, Shelley.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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Posted by: Wanna Be Like Stevie! <joditrotter@yahoo.com>
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