Mort Sahl

Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl (born May 11, 1927) is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy.^[1][2] He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses.^[1] He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1960 where they called him "the patriarch of a new school of comedians".^[1][2]

Early life

He was born on May 11, 1927 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Harry Sahl.^[2] His father was a court reporter who met his wife when she responded to an advertisement he took out in a poetry magazine.^[1] The family moved to Los Angeles, California and Mort joined the ROTC unit at Belmont High School. He was also on the staff of the school's newspaper, the Belmont Sentinel. Actor Richard Crenna was one of his classmates.

Military service

After high school, in 1945, Sahl enlisted in the United States Air Force and was stationed in Alaska.^[1] In 1950, he graduated from University of Southern California with majors in traffic engineering and city management.^[2] In a speech given at Claremont McKenna's Athenaeum in 2008, Sahl claimed to have attended West Point. He then began performing stand up comedy at Enrico Banducci's hungry i nightclub in San Francisco.^[2]

Career

In 1976, Sahl wrote an autobiography called "Heartland". It is a bitter account of his rise in comedy, his obsession with the Kennedy assassination, his decline in show business, and his long time friendship with Hugh Hefner. In 1979 he briefly hosted an afternoon talk show on WRC Radio, in Washington, D.C.

During the 1980s, Sahl made many jokes critical of his old friend, Ronald Reagan ("Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan can't tell the difference!"). Sahl and his wife were invited to the White House by Nancy Reagan, where President Reagan roasted him at a White House tribute in front of many other top comedians. Sahl said to television interviewer Charlie Rose of the Reagans, "They are very, very forgiving."

Political activism

Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Sahl's interest in who was behind it was so great that he became a deputized member of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's team to investigate the murder.^[2] As a result, Sahl's comedy began to reflect his politics and included readings and commentary on the Warren Commission Report. His earlier anti-Kennedy jokes and his onstage tirades against the Warren Commission, alienated much of his audience. He was effectively blacklisted and his shows were cancelled. Sahl's income dropped from US$1 million to US$19,000 a year. (According to the Inflation Calculator of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $19,000 in 1964 was the equivalent of $134,000 in 2008.) However, the rising tide of counterculture fueled his comeback.

In the 1988 presidential election, Sahl was the most prominent supporter of unsuccessful candidate Alexander Haig.^[3]

Comedy style

Sahl's humor has always been based on current events, especially politics. He broke new ground in the late 1950s and early 1960s by looking to the day's newspaper headlines for many of his monologues rather than relying on one-liners. His trademark is to appear on stage with a newspaper in hand, casually dressed in a V-neck sweater.^[2]

When John F. Kennedy, a personal friend, became President, Sahl began making jokes that were critical of Kennedy's policies. Television host Ed Sullivan refused to let Sahl tell any Kennedy jokes on The Ed Sullivan Show, which meant Sahl was seldom seen on TV during the next few years.

Personal life

Sahl was married to Playboy Playmate China Lee from 1967 until their divorce in 1991. They had one son, Mort Sahl Jr., who died March 27, 1996 at the age of 19 of a drug overdose.^[4]

Recognition

He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1960.^[1]

Mort is listed #40 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standup comedians of all time.

Sahl, who is Jewish, received the Fifth Annual Alan King Award in American Jewish Humor (2003) from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture.

In April 2011, The Library of Congress named "At Sunset" to the National Recording Registry. Although an unauthorized release, "At Sunset" retains the distinction of being the first recording of modern stand-up comedy. From the Library of Congress press release: "Sahl’s comedy is typified by a conversational style, thoroughly grounded in up-to-the-minute topics and events, and is replete with satiric asides and smart, subtle punch lines... His approach to comedy became a staple on television and at comedy clubs for decades."

Woody Allen has said, "I adored Mort Sahl," and added he would not have become a comedian himself if not for Sahl's example, which proved a comedian could succeed with off-hand intellectual material. He compared Sahl's influence on comedy to the effect Charlie Parker had on jazz.^[5] "I still find Mort Sahl funny," Allen said in 2008. "I was with him the other day, in California, and he’s 81 and he’s teaching at Claremont [McKenna] College. And he said they have a course out there that they offered him to teach, on the Holocaust, and he didn’t take it. He said, 'I wanted to see first how history judges the event.'"^[6]

Discography

• At Sunset (recorded 1955, released 1959?)
• The Future Lies Ahead (1958)
• 1960 or Look Forward in Anger (1959)
• At the Hungry i (1960)
• The Next President (1960)
• A Way of Life (1960)
• Great Moments of Comedy with Mort Sahl
• The New Frontier (1961)
• On Relationships (1961)
• Anyway... Onward (1967)
• "Sing a Song of Watergate... Apocryphal of Lie!" (1973)
• Mort Sahl's America (1997)

Filmography

• Looking for Lenny (2008)
• Sabrina (1995)
• Nothing Lasts Forever (1984) .... Uncle Mort
• Inside the Third Reich (1982) (TV) .... Werner Finck
• Don't Make Waves (1967) .... Sam Lingonberry
• Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1967) .... Dan Ruskin
• Johnny Cool (1963) .... Ben Morrow
• All the Young Men (1960) .... Cpl. Crane
• In Love and War (1958) .... Danny Krieger
• Thriller, Man In The Middle - TV (1960)) .... Sam Lynch

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mort Sahl

• Mort Sahl's Official Website
• Mort Sahl fan site
• Mort Sahl at the Internet Movie Database
• Image of Mort & Kenslea Sahl
• PBS American Masters biography
• Mort Sahl on National Public Radio in 2003
• Mort Sahl: The Loyal Opposition, from the website of Robert B. Weide
• THE FUTURE LIES BEHIND! Thank you, Mort Sahl ... for telling it like it was