Norm Crosby
American comedian famed for his deliberate mangling of the English language
Norm Crosby, comedian. Born: 15 September 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Died: 7 November 2020 in Los Angeles, California, US, aged 93
Nor m Crosby, t he deadpan mangler of the English language who was popular as a television, nightclub and casino comedian in the US and also played the London Palladium, has died. He was 93.
Early in his career, Crosby realised he needed a gimmick to differentiate himself from the burgeoning generation of comedians who were achieving fame on the many network TV variety shows. “I was looking around for fresh ideas, and I kept hearing people misuse words,” he told an interviewer in 1989. “So I started to use it in my act.” He called the famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock “Dr Spook”. With straightfaced sincerity, he said people “should have an apathy for one another; they should have rappaport for each other.” Today’s kids, he said, “gotta cut that umbrella cord and split”.
Norman Lawrence Crosby was born in Boston in 1927. “Like most comedians, I was the funny kid in the family and in the neighbourhood,” he explained in 1993. “I was always told I should entertain.”
The war intervened, but after his discharge, he saw the practical value of a steady job over showbusiness and enrolled at the Boston School of Art. He worked as a commercial artist and for a while ran a small advertising agency. But he still devoted evenings and weekends to honing his performing skills.
He wore a hearing aid onstage – during the Second World War he served aboard a submarine chaser, and concussion from the depth charges damaged his ears.
Crosby’s first steady work as a comic came in his native Boston, which led to an engagement in the early 1960s at the prestigious Latin Quarter in New York. Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell gave the comedian a rave review, and offers from Johnny Carson and other TV shows and club dates poured in.
Crosby became a favourite at the major Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos and played theatres, including many times at London’s Palladium, and concert halls.
Starting in 1978, he starred in a syndicated TV show, Norm Crosby’s Comedy Shop.
Crosby married Joan Crane Foley in 1966. They had two children.