Morey Amsterdam
Morey Amsterdam | |
|---|---|
 Morey Amsterdam in 1970 | |
| Born | Moritz Amsterdam December 14, 1908 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | October 27, 1996 (aged 87) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California |
| Occupation(s) | Actor, comedian |
| Years active | 1922–1996 |
| Spouse(s) |
Mabel Todd (m. 1933–1945)Kay Patrick (m. 1949) |
| Children | 2 |
Moritz "Morey" Amsterdam (December 14, 1908 – October 27, 1996) was an American television actor and comedian. He was known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on CBS's The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to 1966.[1]
Early life
Amsterdam was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of the three sons of Max and Jennie (Finder) Amsterdam, Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary.[2]
He began working in vaudeville in 1922 as the straight man for his older brother's jokes. He was a cellist, a skill he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone.[1]
After being caught in the middle of a gunfight, Amsterdam moved to California and worked writing jokes. His enormous repertoire, and his ability to come up with a joke on any subject, earned him the nickname The Human Joke Machine. He sometimes performed with a mock machine on his chest, hanging by a strap. He turned a hand crank and paper rolled out; he would then pretend to read the machine's joke, although actually the paper was blank.
Amsterdam's reputation for humor preceded him. Hal Block tells of Amsterdam walking up Sixth Avenue in New York City and meeting an old friend. "Where have you been?" the friend asked. "Sick," Amsterdam replied, "I've been in bed with a cold." His friend looked at him and asked, "What's so funny about that?"[3]
Radio, songwriting and screenwriting
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During the 1930s, Amsterdam was a regular on The Al Pearce Show radio program, and by 1937 was the master of ceremonies on The Night Club of the Air. Amsterdam also had a notable career as a songwriter, with his first popular success being "Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming".
Amsterdam was credited as the lyricist on the 1945 Andrews Sisters hit "Rum and Coca-Cola". However, the original song was written and performed by Trinidadian calypso singer Lord Invader, and composed by Lionel Belasco. Amsterdam had altered some lyrics for the Andrews Sisters record, and was subsequently involved in a copyright suit over the song, which dragged on until 1948. In the end, Lord Invader was given a substantial royalty payment for having written the lyrics of original piece, while Amsterdam retained the credit (and the publishing rights) for his revised version of the lyric.
In the early 1940s, Amsterdam was a screenwriter, contributing dialogue for two East Side Kids films. He is listed as screenwriter for the 1943 film The Ghost and the Guest and 1944's Bowery Champs.
By 1947, he was performing on three daily radio shows. Beginning in 1948, he appeared on the radio show Stop Me If You've Heard This One. The Morey Amsterdam Show aired on CBS radio from July 10, 1948, to February 15, 1949. For three months, it was on both radio and television with different scripts for the same premise and cast. He also did a radio show called the Laugh and Chuckle Swing Club, broadcasting from the Filmart Theater on Vine Street in Hollywood, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Television
The Morey Amsterdam Show ran on CBS TV from December 1948 to March 1949 and on DuMont from April 1949 to October 1950. Among Morey's regular guests was song-and-dance man Art Carney. The cigarette girl was future author Jacqueline Susann, wife of the producer of the show, Irving Mansfield. [citation needed] Jazz musician Johnny Guarneri led the band.
In 1950, he briefly hosted the comedy-variety show Broadway Open House, TV's first late-night entertainment show, on NBC.[1] One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.[4] The show was originally to be hosted by comic Don "Creesh" Hornsby (so nicknamed because he yelled "Creesh" often), but he died of polio two weeks before the premiere broadcast. Hornsby's replacements, hosting different nights each week, were Amsterdam (Monday and Wednesday) and the raucous Jerry Lester (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays), the brother of character actor Buddy Lester. Amsterdam soon exited the show, leaving Lester the sole host.[citation needed]
In February 1952, Amsterdam made his dramatic TV debut on an episode of the DuMont Television Network series Not for Publication.[5]
In 1957, he appeared as "Jack Connors" in the third episode ("The Three Pretenders") of the syndicated television sitcom How to Marry a Millionaire, with Barbara Eden and Merry Anders.[6]
In 1958, he appeared as saloon manager Lucien Bellingham in an episode of the CBS western series Have Gun, Will Travel entitled "The Moor's Revenge". He later guest-starred on the CBS sitcom Pete and Gladys, with Harry Morgan and Cara Williams.
His best-known role was as comedy writer Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show, a role suggested for him by his friend Rose Marie, who also appeared on the show.[7]
The show's creator, Carl Reiner, based the character on his old friend Mel Brooks, with whom he worked on the writing staff of Your Show of Shows. Like Amsterdam himself, Buddy had a ready quip for any situation, and one of the show's most popular running gags was his insult-laden feud with producer Mel Cooley (Richard Deacon). Buddy was also one of the rare overtly Jewish characters on TV in that era, with one episode revolving around his belated decision to have a Bar Mitzvah. Amsterdam also wrote lyrics for the show's theme song, which were never heard on the air, but have been performed by Dick Van Dyke in concert.[8] Van Dyke sang those lyrics on the October 23, 2010 edition of the NPR show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.[9]
Amsterdam was an occasional panelist on Match Game and the short-lived Can You Top This? (which he also executive produced) during the 1970s. He appeared as a small-time criminal in several episodes of the soap opera The Young and the Restless in the 1990s. Amsterdam and Rose Marie later appeared as panelists on The Hollywood Squares and guest-starred together in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City (his final TV appearance).[10]
Films
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In 1958, Amsterdam appeared in the low-budget film Machine-Gun Kelly with Charles Bronson, and he did a notable dramatic turn in the 1960 noir classic Murder, Inc. as Catskill nightclub owner Walter Sage, the first victim (according to the film) of the newly minted Murder, Incorporated.
Amsterdam played Clappy, owner of the local nightclub, in the Beach Party movies of the 1960s, which were produced by American International Pictures, of which he was vice president.[11] He and Rose Marie also co-starred in the 1966 film, Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, a comedy co-written and co-produced by Amsterdam. The film features Richard Deacon, their co-star on The Dick Van Dyke Show, with cameos by the show's co-producer Danny Thomas and co-star Carl Reiner. His later roles included appearances in The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968), Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), When Nature Calls (1985) and Side by Side (1988).
Death
Amsterdam died of a heart attack at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on October 27, 1996, at the age of 87.[12] He was entombed at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Further reading
- Keep Laughing. Citadel Press, 1959. ASIN B0007E665M
- Morey Amsterdam's Benny Cooker Crock Book for Drinkers. Regnery, 1977. ISBN 0-8092-8138-4
References
- ^ a b c David Stout (October 29, 1996). "Morey Amsterdam, Comedian and Joke Encyclopedia, Dies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 18, 2015. Retrieved August 29, 2012.
Morey Amsterdam ... died on Monday in Los Angeles. He was in his 80's. Mr. Amsterdam suffered a heart attack at his home and died at Cedars Sinai Hospital ...
- ^ Some biographies list him as born in San Francisco because his father was a violinist with the San Francisco Symphony.
- ^ Block, Hal (October 18, 1950). "A Comic's Life Isn't Funny". The Milwaukee Journal (republished from Collier's). p. M24.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|newspaper=(help) - ^ McNeil, Alex. Total Television: a Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present. Penguin, 1985.
- ^ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. 2003. p. 866. ISBN 0-345-45542-8.
- ^ "How to Marry a Millionaire: The Three Pretenders". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved November 18, 2017.
- ^ Waldron, Vince (2011). The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book (3 ed.). Chicago: Chicago Review Press. pp. 51–52. ISBN 978-1-56976-839-6.
- ^ Waldron, Vince (2011). The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book (3 ed.). Chicago: Chicago Review Press. p. 379. ISBN 978-1-56976-839-6.
- ^ Available as transcript and audio WWDTM 10-23-10, npr.org; accessed January 8, 2018.
- ^ "Morey Amsterdam". IMDb. Retrieved September 23, 2018.
- ^ Writer, Myrna Oliver, Times Staff. "From the Archives: Morey Amsterdam; 'Buddy' on 'Dick Van Dyke Show' - Los Angeles Times". latimes.com. Retrieved September 23, 2018.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Vallance, Tom, "Obituary: Morey Amsterdam ", The Independent (London), November 4, 1996. Retrieved October 6, 2010
External links
- Morey Amsterdam at IMDb
- Filmography of Morey Amsterdam at The New York Times
- Catalogue of his shows in the radioGOLDINdex database
- Morey Amsterdam at Find a Grave
- American male comedians
- American radio personalities
- American male radio actors
- American male television actors
- American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
- Male actors from Chicago
- Musicians from Chicago
- Jewish American writers
- Jewish American male actors
- Jewish American musicians
- American cellists
- 1908 births
- 1996 deaths
- Vaudeville performers
- Male actors from New York City
- Male actors from Los Angeles
- Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
- 20th-century American male actors
- 20th-century American musicians
- Comedians from California
- Comedians from New York City
- Comedians from Illinois
- Jewish American comedians
- 20th-century American comedians