Sid Caesar

Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) worked as a comic actor and comedian for six decades. He became famous for two live TV series from the 1950s that broke new ground: *Your Show of Shows* (1950–1954), a 90-minute weekly program that reached 60 million viewers, and its follow-up, *Caesar's Hour* (1954–1957). Both shows shaped later comedians. Between 1953 and 1954, *Your Show of Shows* and its cast earned seven Emmy nominations and won two. Caesar was a sketch comic and actor, not a stand-up comedian. His work leaned on body language, accents, and facial expressions rather than just words, and critics in the 1950s called it "avant garde."

He also appeared in movies, playing Coach Calhoun in *Grease* (1978) and *Grease 2* (1982), and had roles in *It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World* (1963), *Silent Movie* (1976), *History of the World, Part I* (1981), *Cannonball Run II* (1984), and *Vegas Vacation* (1997). Caesar came up with ideas and scenes, then brought in writers to add dialogue and flesh things out. Early in their careers, writers like Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Michael Stewart, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, Selma Diamond, and Woody Allen wrote for him. Steve Allen said, "Sid's was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be."

His TV shows satirized real-life events and people, and parodied film genres, theater, TV shows, and opera. The dialogue was sharper, funnier, and more adult than other comedy shows of the time. He was called "one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy," and some critics dubbed him "television's Charlie Chaplin." *The New York Times* referred to him as the "comedian of comedians from TV's early days." Over 60 years, he earned 11 Emmy nominations and won twice. He also played saxophone, having started at age eleven, and wrote several books, including two autobiographies about his career and his later battles with alcoholism and barbiturate addiction.

Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York, to a Jewish family. His father, Max Ziser (1874–1946), and mother, Ida Raffel (1887–1975), likely came from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland. Stories say the surname "Caesar" was given by an Ellis Island official, but no documented cases of name changes there exist. Max and Ida ran a 24-hour luncheonette. Growing up around it, Caesar picked up the accents, rhythms, and mannerisms of the diverse customers. He later used these to create his signature double-talk—improvised gibberish that sounded like real foreign languages. He first tried it with a group of Italians, his head barely above the table. They liked it so much they sent him to a Polish group, then to Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and Bulgarians. His older brother, David, served as his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." Together, they made early family sketches based on movies like *Test Pilot* and the 1927 silent film *Wings*.

As a boy, Caesar took saxophone lessons and played in small bands during the Great Depression for money. At 14, he went to the Catskill Mountains as a tenor saxophonist in the Swingtime Six band and sometimes performed sketches in the Borscht Belt. After graduating from Yonkers High School in 1940, he left home for a music career. In Manhattan, he worked as an usher and doorman at the Capitol Theater. He couldn't join the American Federation of Musicians in New York City until he established residency, so he found work as a saxophonist at the Vacationland Hotel in the Catskills. Mentored by social director Don Appel, he played in the dance band and learned comedy, doing three shows a week. He audited clarinet and saxophone classes at Juilliard. In 1940, he enlisted in the Coast Guard, stationed in Brooklyn, where he played in military revues. He was discharged in 1945. Composer Vernon Duke, also at the base, collaborated with Caesar on musical revues.

In summer 1942, Caesar met his future wife, Florence Levy, at the Avon Lodge in Woodridge, New York. They married on July 17, 1943, and had three children: Michele, Rick, and Karen. After joining the musicians' union, he briefly played with Shep Fields, Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak, Art Mooney, and Benny Goodman. Later, he performed "Sing, Sing, Sing" with Goodman on TV. While still in the military, Caesar was sent to Palm Beach, Florida, where Vernon Duke and Howard Dietz were creating a service revue called *Tars and Spars*. There he met the civilian director, Max Liebman. When Caesar's comedy got bigger applause than the musical numbers, Liebman had him do stand-up bits between songs. *Tars and Spars* toured nationally and became Caesar's first major comedy gig. Liebman later produced Caesar's first TV series. After finishing his service in 1945, the Caesars moved to Hollywood. In 1946, Columbia Pictures produced...