The Comedians:
Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy
Kliph Nesteroff

Something Appealing, Something Appalling –This book is a 357-page Genesis-telling of American humor from Frank Fay to Marc Maron. Written by Kliph Nesteroff, the history features memorable lines from Jonathan Winters – “Just tell the truth and people will laugh” – and Phyllis Diller – “There will never be enough comedy. Comedy is at a premium always.”

A gift from the talented improv performer and teacher David Razowsky, “The Comedians” summarizes American comedy history from Vaudeville to radio, from presentation houses to television, from comedy albums to podcasts. Nesteroff walks us through the venues and their performers, covering a good deal of ground along the way – the Keith Circuit, the Orpheum Circuit, the Pantages Circuit, the Loew’s Circuit, the Sheedy Time Circuit, the Chitlin’ Circuit, the Presentation Houses, the coffee houses, Las Vegas, the Playboy clubs, the comedy clubs that rose in the 1970s, the cable TV shows of the 1990s and 2000s, and the podcasts of today.

Filled with history, stories, behind-the-scenes accounts, and a bit of gossip, the book doesn’t shy from describing the Mob’s control of entertainment and how gangsters lost control to corporate executives (the real tough-guy gangsters), starting with Howard Hughes buying up multiple Vegas properties in the late 1960s.

“The Comedians” also offers numerous eye-openers, for me, at least: Hal Roach’s fondness of Mussolini; Joe E. Lewis getting butchered by thugs working for Machine Gun Jack McGurn, just down the street from where I live near our beloved Green Mill in Uptown; Lou Costello’s support of Joe McCarthy; Jack Parr’s hatred of gays; how Jackie Mason was widely disliked by his peers; and how Alan King had joined the Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

Of course, the book features its share of laughs and spot-on observations. One such observation from Nesteroff: In the mid-1960s you “could categorize the style of comics based on what they smoked. Dick Gregory and Bob Newhart chain-smoked cigarettes. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin smoked pot. Milton Berle, George Burns, Danny Thomas and Groucho Marx smoked cigars.”

And the wisecracks? Milton Berle on playing small towns during the Vaudeville days: “One town was so small the local hooker was a virgin.” And here’s comedy writer Walter Kempley describing a Tonight Show spinoff from the early days: “America After Dark was so bad viewers went next door to turn it off.”

The book’s best line is reserved for Frank Fay, possibly the first performer to stand in one place, speak and get laughs without wearing a costume or doing anything physical. As the book notes, Frank Fay also was a notorious anti-Semite.

So, when Frank Fay married Barbara Stanwyck, the joke went: “Who is the actor with the biggest prick in Hollywood?”

“Barbara Stanwyck.”