The comedian who found humor in angst

Shelley Berman was one of the first standup comedians to build an act around the anxieties and frustrations of modern American life. His fame peaked in the late 1950s and early 1960s, driven by his signature telephone monologue routines, which he delivered perched on a stool, a receiver mimed with one hand. In his most famous sketch, he reacted with horror as he was told how much damage he’d drunkenly caused at a party the night before. “How did I break a window? ... Oh I see .... Were you very fond of that cat?” Another skit saw him ringing a department store to tell them a woman was hanging from a 10th-floor ledge. “No, operator, you’re missing the point,” he said. “I don’t wish to speak to the woman.” Born in Chicago to a tavern owner and his wife, Berman “was a show-off as a child,” said The New York Times. After studying drama at the city’s Goodman Theater, he performed in stock companies across the country. He returned to his hometown in 1956 to join the Compass Players, an improv group whose members included Mike Nichols and Elaine May, and later “ventured out on his own.” Berman initially struggled—audiences were used to rapid-fire jokes, not long routines—but he eventually “grew more comfortable on stage, and had a triumphant run at the Chicago nightclub Mister Kelly’s.” Berman’s career really took off when Verve records signed him to “record his act,” said the Chicago Sun-Times. His debut album, 1959’s Inside Shelley Berman, became the first comedy record to sell more than 500,000 copies, and the first nonmusical release to win a Grammy Award. “I thought no one would want to see me anymore if they could just play [my act],” Berman said. “Then, after it came out, I went to play a show on Sunset Boulevard, and there was a line around the block!” Berman became a comedy outcast in 1963, after he was recorded having a tantrum over a telephone ringing backstage during a performance, said HollywoodReporter.com. He turned to acting, appearing in films and TV shows well into his 80s, including Curb Your Enthusiasm. But he always resented his fall from grace. “I am passionate about things,” he said. “But I did not deserve the things that were said about me.”