July 29, 2014

Happy birthday to Professor Irwin Corey. He's 100 years old today.

Here's video of him performing in 2011, when he was 97:



And the video below comes from way back in 2007, when the President of the United States was George Bush, and Professor Irwin Corey looked much more than 5 years younger. He criticizes the President in both videos, and perhaps the years weigh very heavily as you approach 100 — I'm saying "you," but do you really think you'll have the opportunity to feel the increasing weight of the years leading up to 100? — but perhaps for a true left-winger like Professor Irwin Corey, the experience of disappointment in Obama hurts far more than getting what you knew you were going to hate from George Bush.



From Wikipedia:

Poverty-stricken, his parents were forced to place him in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, where Corey remained until his early teens, when he rode the rails out to California, and enrolled himself at Belmont High School in Los Angeles. During the Great Depression, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, and while working his way back East, became a featherweight Golden Gloves boxing champion.

Corey supported left-wing politics. "When I tried to join the Communist Party, they called me an anarchist." He has appeared in support of Cuban children, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the American Communist Party, and was blacklisted in the 1950s, the effects of which he says still linger to this day....  During the 1960 election, Corey campaigned for president on Hugh Hefner's Playboy ticket....

When the famously publicity-shy Thomas Pynchon won the National Book Award Fiction Citation for Gravity's Rainbow, he asked Corey to accept it on his behalf. The New York Times described the resulting speech as "...a series of bad jokes and mangled syntax which left some people roaring with laughter and others perplexed."
Listen to that speech here
In the Robert A. Heinlein science fiction novel Friday, the eponymous heroine says
At one time there really was a man known as "the World's Greatest Authority." I ran across him in trying to nail down one of the many silly questions that kept coming at me from odd sources. Like this: Set your terminal to "research." Punch parameters in succession "North American culture," "English-speaking," "mid-twentieth century," "comedians," "the World’s Greatest Authority." The answer you can expect is "Professor Irwin Corey." You’ll find his routines timeless humor.
For an October 2011 interview, Corey invited a New York Times reporter to visit his 1840 carriage house on East 36th Street. Corey estimated its resale value at $3.5 million. He said that, when not performing, he panhandled for change from motorists exiting the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Every few months, he told the interviewer, he donated the money to a group that purchased medical supplies for Cuban children. He said of the drivers who supplied the cash, "I don’t tell them where the money’s going, and I’m sure they don’t care." Irvin Arthur, Corey's agent for half a century, assured the reporter that Corey didn't need the money for himself. "This is not about money," Arthur said. "For Irwin, this is an extension of his performing."
Here's an interview with him (with photos). The interviewer's first line is: "Damon Runyon once called you the funniest man in the world." And:
Kliph Nesteroff: I have a clipping from 1936 that says you were performing with the Lionel Stander Vaudeville Tour.

Professor Irwin Corey: Yeah, I did a tour with Lionel Stander. He fired me after three weeks to save fifty dollars.

Kliph Nesteroff: (laughs)

Professor Irwin Corey: (laughs) He did a vaudeville act and we were hecklers. I don't remember exactly what we did, but he was on the bill with a couple of people. He said on New Year's Eve, "Don't even bother telling jokes. Tonight the audience are the funny ones."
Later:
I did a show with Shelley Berman, Mort Sahl, Dick Cavett, Dick Gregory and Bill Dana. I told this joke. "A bum walks up to a very wealthy woman and says, 'Madam, I'm broke. Can I borrow a buck?' Madam looks at the bum and says, ' Neither a borrower nor a lender be! - Shakespere.' The bum replies, 'Fuck you!' - Tennesee Williams.'"

... Mort Sahl used some of my material. I always said, "The future lies ahead!" And then he put out a record called The Future Lies Ahead - and that had been my line. In fact, I was the one that coined the expression, "You can get more with a kind word... and a gun, than with just a kind word." Many people thought that Al Capone had said that. Al Capone couldn't even write his first name.
Much more at that link, and many more names dropped, e.g., "that woman that had her head cut off. What was her name? Jayne Mansfield?" and "George Carlin. I also helped get Carlin a job early on." and "Woody Allen used some of my material. He was no good at the... he died at the Hungry i..." and "Ed Sullivan was an anti-Semite and a very dull person in reality."
Kliph Nesteroff: Did anybody every go after you because of your progressive politics?

Professor Irwin Corey: I was never aware that I was a political commentator. It just happens. You just do it. You breathe, but you're not conscious of breathing. When I did my act I wasn't conscious that it was political.

13 comments:

Sharc said...

Tango lima; delta romeo.

Paco Wové said...

Hi, you've reached the Corey hot-line. $4.95 a minute. Here are some
words that rhyme with Corey:
Gory. Story. Allegory. Montessori...

bleh said...

Must be a generational thing. I don't understand his appeal as a comedian. Sorry.

bbkingfish said...

"Before the revolution, life was man against man. After the revolution, the situation was reversed."

Prof. Irwin Corey

Ann Althouse said...

"Must be a generational thing. I don't understand his appeal as a comedian. Sorry."

Why does your failure to appreciate one comedian show that it's "generational"? Do you dislike all the comedians who were popular in the 50s and 60s? Do you like all of the ones from some generation that you belong to?

Quaestor said...

[Cory] said that, when not performing, he panhandled for change from motorists exiting the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Every few months, he told the interviewer, he donated the money to a group that purchased medical supplies for Cuban children.

I suppose this never struck him as odd or contradictory. Buttonhole any leftist or progressive on the subject of Cuba -- human rights, political prisoners, pick your outrage – the leftward-leaning one will as rapidly as he may steer the conversation onto the subject of health care, vis-à-vis the superior Cuban socialist model contrasted with the heartless American free (well, formerly free) enterprise model.

If Cory’s entire personal zeitgeist is more worthy than a hill of beans, then should he not panhandle from Cuban children to purchase medical supplies for Americans?

Chris Lopes said...

I seem to remember Corey being more bipartisan in his humor back in the days of his Merv Griffin appearances.

geokstr said...

My favorite Irwin Corey joke:

Audience question:
Why do you wear tennis shoes?

Corey:
Why do I wear tennis shoes?

That's a diffficult question, so to make it easier I'll divide it into two parts.

First: Why?

"Why" is a question of incredible depth and subtlety, one that has engaged and frustrated the great philosophers from Socrates up through the modern age.

To even attempt to answer would be to insult this great and brilliant tradition by suggesting that someone like myself deserves to be among their august company even for the briefest moment.

Now, as for the second part of your question:

Do I wear tennis shoes?

Yes."

Quaestor said...

My contact with Irwin Cory’s comedy is limited entirely to one appearance on the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. It was a Friday evening in 1969 or 1970, Fridays being the only night I was allowed to watch TV past 11:30. Johnny said, “Please welcome the world’s leading authority, Professor Irwin Cory.” Then Doc Severinsen’s band struck up a few bars of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, played a half-step off key as a disheveled figure wearing a demented grin stalked out from behind the sequined curtain. Instead of turning for Carson’s desk and guest seating Cory headed straight for the floor director, hand outstretched, the cameras tracking his every move, breaking the fourth wall. Eventually Cory was steered back onto the stage, where chalk and blackboard awaited. And so on with the famous lecture. It was funny – not witty – just funny in the Curly Howard tradition, as in stupid is funny. This is probably because Cory’s act was aimed at hipsters who expect salaciousness aplenty, and being television the Tonight Show only allowed the stupid side of the good professor to show.

I bought comedy albums as a kid, a lot of them. I enjoyed the Firesign Theatre and Monty Python particularly. Hated Cheech and Chong. Not funny. The Firesign guys were big dopers, but they knew enough not to do much in the way of dope humor, whereas Cheech and Chong relied on their audience being so baked as to find anything they said gigglesome. I never bought an Irwin Cory disc; I never saw one for sale.

In real life I took courses under a real-life version of Cory’s professor. The fellow was notorious for appearing uncombed, unshaved, and partially dressed before his class. His causal speech was somewhat rambling and unfocused, but he was a world-renown figure in the rarified field of topology. He once tried to explain to me how one may turn a hollow ball inside out without cutting it. He lost me.

Quaestor said...

Please substitute Corey for Cory. Sorry for the spelling error, Professor.

m stone said...

BDNYC said:

"Must be a generational thing. I don't understand his appeal as a comedian. Sorry."

Probably is generational, like slapstick. You grow up with it, seems naturally funny, offbeat, even apolitical (although Corey took jabs.)

The Millenialists seem to like a different brand of humor in soundbites, acerbic, topical. certainly political. The times are ripe for this kind of material.

Also, not many old comedians today. Never edgy enough. Corey was "old" for many years.

The Godfather said...

Back in the day, he was funny in small doses, but no longer. The 2007 clip wasn't funny because (a) it was hard to be sure whether he was in character or just senile, and (b) the gags were terribly outdated (the George Murphy joke was at least 40 years old in 2007, and Shirley Temple?!!). I hope I have the good sense to stop doing what I do when I reach that stage (if I forget, remind me).

averagejoe said...

Well, at least left-wing progressive comedians can count on a left-wing progressive audience to yuk it up at the left-wing progressive humor no matter how unfunny or dated the gags are. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will still be bringing down the house doing their George W. Bush jokes in the year 2075.