Obituary

Oy Vey! Mason sits alongside comedy greats

BY DAVID SAFFER

‘Borscht belt’ stand-up comic Jackie Mason was a giant amongst the comedy greats.

Raucously funny, the rabbi turned comic passed away surrounded by family and close friends at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan last Saturday.

Renowned for Jewish themed and politically incorrect rat-a-tat-tat patter tales, when Jewish comedians of all-time are recalled Mason is up there with the very best including Groucho Marx, Mel Brooks, George Burns, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Bette Midler, Jack Benny and Jerry Seinfield. And that is not forgetting Adam Sandler, Lenny Bruce, Billy Crystal, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Gene Wilder, Phil Silvers and Ben Stiller to name but a few.

Mason’s gags on life, business, romance and politics were legendary. His oneman Broadway shows were a smash hit. A regular on prime-time chat TV shows for decades, Mason enjoyed some movie success and also had a legion of fans in cult TV show The Simpsons.

Mason, 93, won many accolades including a Special Tony Award, ACE Award and Emmy for his one-man show The World According to Me! that ran for 573 performances in 1988. An Emmy also came his way for The Simpsons where he played the father of Krusty the Clown.

The world of entertainment paid heartfelt tributes this week.

Happy Days star Henry Winkler, said of a Mason performance, "Truly one of the funniest shows I have ever seen.”

Comedy Central described Mason as “an original whose contribution to comedy was huge”. Fox News’ Sean Hannity described Mason as “irreverent, iconoclastic, funny, smart and a great American Patriot”, Seinfield’s Jason Alexander said Mason was a comic from a different time and “one of the best” whilst Simpsons producer Mike Reiss summed him up as the "funniest comedian ever" and an "all-time great" guest star.

Family spokesman and lawyer Raoul Felder confirmed Mason’s death on NBC News. "He had a great life," he said. "The trajectory of his life was amazing. He was active a year before his death. He was still writing. He had a very keen mind. He had knowledge in different fields."

Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, June 9, 1928, to orthodox immigrants from Belarus, his parents, Eli and Bella (Gitlin), moved the family to Manhattan in 1933.

Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfathers and brothers, he became a rabbi, gaining semicha at Yeshiva University. Both sisters married rabbis.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree at City College, and as a Cantor, the young rabbi led congregations in Weldon, North Carolina and Beth Shalom Congregation, Latrobe.

Mason used to quip that when he started to tell more jokes, more gentiles came to hear his sermons! But from the age of 12, he knew a rabbinical life was not his calling, show business was the dream.

Surviving harsh Borscht Belt crowds in the Catskill mountains, three years after his father passed away in 1959, the budding comic changed his name and went full time into a tough industry.

Spotted at a Los Angeles nightclub in 1960, Mason appeared on The Steve Allen Show which led to bookings at the Copacabana and Blue Angel in New York.

A best-selling LP, I'm the Greatest Comedian in the World, Only Nobody Knows It Yet, was followed by I Want to Leave You with the Words of a Great Comedian.

Mason’s break came on The Ed Sullivan Show. Guest appearances followed on The Tonight Show, The Garry Moore Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and The Mike Douglas Show.

Mason was in the big time but famously fell out with Sullivan in 1964. Mason sued and won at New York Supreme Court but it damaged his career. Booking agents regarded his behaviour “unpredictable.” Mason later said, “It took 20 years to overcome what happened in that one minute.”

The mid-60s saw a spat in Las Vegas in 1966 with Frank Sinatra after he married actress Mia Farrow.

A Broadway play Mason starred and co-wrote with Mike Mortman, A Teaspoon Every Four Hours, opened after a record 97 previews but closed after one night in 1969 after dreadful reviews. Mason lost an $100,000 investment. A film, The Stoolie” (1972), similarly flopped. But there was success with Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I in 1981. However, Mason was on the slide.

Redemption came when new manager, Jyll Rosenfeld, who he married in 1991, convinced him to rebuild a stuttering career with guest TV spots as old-style comedy came back in fashion.

The World According to Me! opened on Broadway in December 1986 and ran for two years.

“I didn’t think it would work,” Mason later admitted. “But people, when they come into a theatre, see you in a whole new light. It’s like taking a picture from a kitchen and hanging it in a museum.”

Dame Maureen Lipman witnessed Mason’s return. And in his autobiography, Jackie, Oy! recalled never seeing an audience “swaying with laughter as one man”. Dame Maureen added, “For the first time in my life I scrawled a fan letter saying please come to London, we need you!”

Regarding his unforgettable Jewish voice, Mason, whose daughter, Sheba is also a comic, noted, “You have to laugh. To the agents and manager’s I was too Jewish. To my family, I was not Jewish enough!”

Broadway shows Brand New (1990/1), Politically Incorrect (1994/5), Love Thy Neighbour (1996/7), Much Ado About Everything (1999/2000), Prune Danish (2002/3), Freshly Squeezed (2005/6), The Ultimate Jew (2008) saw Mason successful into the new millennium.

Indeed, The World According to Me! in the late ‘80s remains the longest-running one-man show on Broadway and London's West End.

Time critic John Simon wrote of Politically Incorrect, "His irony is a spotlight illuminating our absurdities, his zingers are scalpels laying bare the sickness under the skin.” Simon added, “Mason is a true satirist in the mold of Mark Twain.”

Of Love thy Neighbour, New York Times critic Lawrence Van Genlder described Mason's routines as "roaringly funny".

TV specials included An Audience with Jackie Mason (1990), Jackie Mason on Campus (1992), Jackie Mason at the London Palladium (1996) and Jackie Mason: A Night at the Opera (2002).

The Jackie Mason Show ran from 2005 until 2011. A Comedian's Comedian poll saw Mason in top-50 comedy acts of all time. He was 63 in Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time". Mason’s autobiography, Jackie, Oy! in 1988 was a bestseller. Writer and satirist Alan Coren wrote, “Jackie Mason is the proof that vaudeville is not a ghost town. All it needed was a new mayor.” Denis Norden noted, “He can tune a comedy line better than anyone around.” Mason has credits for other books, succeeded as an opinionated political commentator on talk radio and later backed Donald Trump ‘presidential campaign. But comedy is his legacy to the world. I was privileged to witness Mason in his pomp live at The Palladium in 1988. Gesticulating with his pointed figure throughout to a packed house, it was a night to remember. Mason defined the ‘C’ in chutzpah and will be remembered as a comedy genius.

Unforgettable Jackie Mason gags:

“It is easy to tell the difference between Jews and gentiles. After the show, all the gentiles are saying 'Have a drink? Want a drink? Let's have a drink!' While all the Jews are saying 'Have you eaten yet? Want a piece of cake? Let's have some cake!”

“Did you hear about the accountant who became am embezzler? He ran away with the accounts payable!”

“Money is not the most important thing in the world. Love is. Fortunately, I love money.”

“I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.”

“It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.”