Lenny Bruce facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lenny Bruce
Bruce in 1961
Born	Leonard Alfred Schneider (1925-10-13)October 13, 1925 Mineola, New York, U.S.
Died	August 3, 1966(1966-08-03) (aged 40) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Eden Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation	Comedian satirist social critic
Years active	1947–1966
Spouse(s)	Honey Bruce ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1957)​
Children	1
Relatives	Sally Marr (mother)
Comedy career
Medium	Stand-up, television, books
Genres	Satire political satire black comedy blue comedy
Subject(s)	American culture American politics race relations religion
Signature

Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which contained satire, politics, and religion.

Bruce paved the way for counterculture-era comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him third (behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.

Early life

Bruce was Jewish, born Leonard Alfred Schneider in Mineola, New York. He grew up in nearby Bellmore, and attended Wellington C. Mepham High School. According to his biography, during part of his high school years, he lived at Dengler's Farm on Wantagh Avenue in Wantagh, New York. His parents divorced before he was 10, and he lived with various relatives over the next decade. His British-born father, Myron (Mickey) Schneider, was a shoe clerk; they saw each other very infrequently. His mother, Sally Marr (legal name Sadie Schneider, born Sadie Kitchenberg), was a stage performer and dancer and had an enormous influence on Bruce's career.

After spending time working on a farm, Bruce joined the United States Navy at the age of 16 in 1942, with active service during World War II aboard the USS Brooklyn (CL-40) in Northern Africa, Palermo in 1943, and Anzio, Italy, in 1944. In May 1945, after a comedic performance for his shipmates in which he was dressed in drag, his commanding officers became upset. He defiantly convinced his ship's medical officer that he was experiencing homosexual urges, leading to his dishonorable discharge in July 1945. However, he had not admitted to or been found guilty of any breach of naval regulations, and successfully applied to change his discharge to "Under Honorable Conditions ... by reason of unsuitability for the naval service".

During the Korean War era, Bruce served in the United States Merchant Marine, ferrying troops from the US to Europe and back.

After a short period living with his father in California, Bruce settled in New York City, hoping to establish himself as a comedian. However, he found it difficult to differentiate himself from the thousands of other show business hopefuls who populated the city. One place where they congregated was Hanson's, a diner where Bruce met Joe Ancis, who had a profound influence on Bruce's approach to comedy. Many of Bruce's later routines reflected his meticulous schooling at the hands of Ancis. He gained notoriety for his focus on black humour and criticism of organized religion and the establishment.

Bruce took the stage as "Lenny Marsalle" one evening at the Victory Club as a stand-in master of ceremonies for one of his mother's shows. His ad-libs earned him some laughs. Soon afterward, in 1947, just after changing his last name to Bruce, he earned $12 and a free spaghetti dinner for his first stand-up performance in Brooklyn. He was later a guest—and was introduced by his mother, calling herself Sally Bruce—on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts radio program. Lenny did a piece inspired by Sid Caesar, "The Bavarian Mimic", featuring impressions of American movie stars (e.g., Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson).

Career

Bruce's early comedy career included writing the screenplays for Dance Hall Racket in 1953, which featured Bruce, his wife Honey Harlow, and mother Sally Marr; Dream Follies in 1954, a low-budget burlesque romp; and a children's film, The Rocket Man, in 1954. In 1956, Frank Ray Perilli, a fellow nightclub comedian who later wrote two dozen successful films and plays, became Bruce's mentor and part-time manager. Through Perilli, Bruce met and collaborated with photojournalist William Karl Thomas on three screenplays (Leather Jacket, Killer's Grave and The Degenerate), none of which made it to the screen, and the comedy material on his first three comedy albums.

Bruce was a roommate of comedian Buddy Hackett in the 1950s. The two appeared on the Patrice Munsel Show (1957–1958), calling their comedy duo the "Not Ready for Prime Time Players", 20 years before the cast of Saturday Night Live used the same name. In 1957, Thomas booked Bruce into the Slate Brothers nightclub, where he was fired the first night. Thomas photographed a number of Bruce's covers, acted as cinematographer on abortive attempts to film their screenplays, and in 1989 wrote a memoir of their ten-year collaboration, Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet. The 2016 biography of Frank Ray Perilli, The Candy Butcher, devotes a chapter to Perilli's ten-year collaboration with Bruce.

Bruce released four albums of original material on Fantasy Records, later compiled and re-released as The Lenny Bruce Originals. Two later records were produced and sold by Bruce himself, including a 10-inch album of the 1961 San Francisco performances that started his legal troubles. Starting in the late 1960s, other unissued Bruce material was released by Alan Douglas, Frank Zappa and Phil Spector, as well as Fantasy. Bruce developed the complexity and tone of his material in Enrico Banducci's North Beach nightclub, the hungry i, where Mort Sahl had earlier made a name for himself.

Bruce was essentially blacklisted from television, and when he did appear, thanks to sympathetic fans like Hefner and Steve Allen, it was with great concessions to Broadcast Standards and Practices.

In the midst of a severe blizzard, Bruce gave a famous performance at Carnegie Hall at midnight on February 4, 1961. It was recorded and later released as the three-disc set The Carnegie Hall Concert.

In August 1965, a year before his death, Bruce gave his penultimate performance at San Francisco's Basin Street West, mainly talking about his legal troubles. The filmed performance was released by Rhino Home Video in 1992 as The Lenny Bruce Performance Film.

Personal life

In 1951, Bruce met and married Honey Harlow. They left New York in 1953 for the West Coast, where they got work as a double act at the Cup and Saucer in Los Angeles. Bruce then joined a bill at the club Strip City. Harlow found employment at the Colony Club.

Bruce left Strip City in late 1954 and found work at various clubs in the San Fernando Valley. Honey and Lenny's daughter Kathleen ("Kitty") Bruce was born in 1955. Honey and Lenny had a tumultuous relationship. They broke up and reunited over and over again between 1956 and Lenny's death in 1966.

In 1959, his divorce from Honey was finalized. At the time of his death, his girlfriend and fiancee was comedienne Lotus Weinstock.

Later years

Poster for Bruce's last series of performances, which took place at The Fillmore in San Francisco on June 24 and 25, 1966

Bruce appeared on network television only six times.

In September 1962, his only visit to Australia caused a media storm, although he was neither banned nor forced to leave the country. He was booked for a two-week engagement at Aaron's Exchange Hotel, a small pub in central Sydney, by American-born, Australia-based promoter Lee Gordon, who was by then deeply in debt, nearing the end of his formerly successful career, and desperate to save his business. Bruce's first show at 9 p.m. on September 6 was uneventful, but his second show at 11 p.m. led to major public controversy. The venue owners cancelled the rest of Bruce's performances, and he retreated to his Kings Cross hotel room. Local university students (including future OZ magazine editor Richard Neville), who were fans of Bruce's humor tried to arrange a performance at the Roundhouse at the University of New South Wales, but at the last minute the university's vice-chancellor rescinded permission to use the venue, with no reason given, and an interview Bruce was scheduled to give on Australian television was cancelled by the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

Bruce remained largely confined to his hotel, but eight days later gave his third and last Australian concert at the Wintergarden Theatre in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Although it had a capacity of 2,100, only 200 people attended, including a strong police presence, and Bruce gave what was described as a "subdued" performance. It was long rumored that a tape recording of the historic performance was made by police, but it was in fact recorded by local jazz saxophonist Sid Powell, who brought a portable tape recorder to the show. The tape was rediscovered in 2011 in the possession of Australian singer Sammy Gaha, who had acted as Bruce's chauffeur during his visit; it was subsequently donated to the Lenny Bruce audio collection at Brandeis University. Bruce left the country a few days later and spoke little about the experience.

Bruce gave a famous performance at the Berkeley Community Theatre in December 1965, which was recorded and became his last live album, The Berkeley Concert. The performance has been described as lucid, clear and calm, and one of his best. His last performance took place on June 25, 1966, at The Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, on a bill with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. Zappa asked Bruce to sign his draft card, but the suspicious Bruce refused.

In 1964 and 1965, Bruce contributed a number of articles to Krassner's satirical magazine The Realist.

Death and posthumous pardon

Bruce's grave at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California

On August 3, 1966, Bruce was found dead in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home.

Bruce's remains were interred in Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California. Over 500 people came to the service to pay their respects, led by Spector. Delivering the eulogy, featured at the end of the documentary Lenny Bruce Without the Tears, the Rev. William Glenesk said:

He was in a sense an evangelist, on a street corner. He was a man—up tight against an artificial world... who shattered its façades, and its hypocrisy, and—if you will pardon the phrase which seems to become a cliche—he saw life as it is.

Bruce's epitaph reads: "Beloved father—devoted son / Peace at last". A memorial event was held at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City on August 12, which was "packed to overflowing" an hour before it was due to get underway. It was attended by prominent members of the arts community, many of whom also performed, and included Allen Ginsberg, Joe Lee Wilson, Jean Shepherd, Charlie Haden, and The Fugs; Paul Krassner officiated.

Legacy

Bruce was the subject of the 1974 biographical drama Lenny, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Dustin Hoffman, who was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for the role. It was based on the Broadway stage play of the same name by Julian Barry, which starred Cliff Gorman in his 1972 Tony Award-winning role. The main character's editing of a fictionalized film version of Lenny was also a major part of Fosse's own autobiopic, the 1979 Academy Award-nominated All That Jazz, where Gorman again played Bruce.

The documentary film Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth (1998), directed by Robert B. Weide and narrated by Robert De Niro, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Episode 12 of Season 1 of Liberty on Trial in America: Cases That Defined Freedom, aired on January 3, 2020, explored the ways in which Bruce and the First Amendment affected each other.

In 2004, Comedy Central placed Bruce at number three on its list of the 100 greatest stand-ups of all time, above Woody Allen (4th) and below Richard Pryor (1st) and George Carlin (2nd). Both comedians who ranked higher than Bruce considered him a major influence. Pryor said that hearing Bruce for the first time "changed my life"; while Carlin said that Bruce was a "brilliant comedian" who influenced him as much as a man in his moral thinking and attitudes as he did as a comedian. Carlin was arrested along with Bruce after refusing to provide identification when police raided a Bruce performance.

Filmography

Discography

Albums

Posthumous releases

Compilations

The later compilations are released in the European Union under various oldies labels, as the content used is public domain in the EU.

Audiobooks

Tribute albums

See also

• List of civil rights leaders
• Dirtymouth, a 1970 biographical film about Bruce