Sid Ceasar | Isaac Sidney Caesar | Yonkers, New York, USA |
Sep 08 1922 - |
Interviewed by Kelly Carlin (George's daughter).
Caesar was the youngest son of Max Caesar and his wife Ida (née Raphael), Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who ran a restaurant. Caesar would wait on tables and learned to mimic the accents, something he would use throughout his career. He first tried his double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat it in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians and Bulgarians. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar can actually speak only English and Yiddish. Sid's older brother David was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section."At fourteen, Caesar went to the Catskills as a saxophonist with Mike Cifichello's Swingtime Six and would also occasionally perform in sketches in the Borscht Belt. When he graduated from high school, he left home, intent on a musical career. He arrived in New York City penniless and tried to join the musician's union (later he attended classes at the Juilliard School of Music). He found work at the Vacationland Hotel in Swan Lake in the Catskills. Caesar's comedy, however, got bigger applause than the musical numbers, and the show's producer asked him to do stand-up between his numbers. Source: Wikipedia
01 Introduction / Family Influences 5:36
02 Funny in School 1:25
03 Start in Show Business 4:18
04 Mining Sketches - Routines / Music Ability / Phrasing 2:54
05 Mind Reading Sketch - Making People Laugh / Being a Musician 7:36
06 Transition to Comedy from the Coast Guard 23:45
07 Transition into TV 6:12
08 The TV Experience 3:33
09 Process of Writing 9:44
10 Joy of Performing 5:50
11 Courage and Fearlessness 3:55
12 Young Comics - Importance of Comedy 3:42
13 What Makes You Laugh? - Comedy and Tragedy 3:47
14 Advice - History / Contribution to Comedy 8:56
Interview, Comedy | |
Enjoy! | |
