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Sid Caesar
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Sid Caesar was one of American television's first real superstars, a sensational comedian who delighted sixty million viewers in the nineteen-fifties with his live weekly programs "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour." And he assembled a stable of zany writers and performers including future stars Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbart. A master of slapstick, funny faces, doubletalk and pseudo-languages, Sid Caesar was inventing modern comedy. Those hilarious and heady days on primetime network television eventually faded, leaving the brilliant Sid Ceasar trapped in a crisis of self-doubt, depression and addiction to pills and alcohol. He fought his way back to sobriety and emotional health, as described in his moving memoir, "Where Have I Been?" Since then, Caesar has battled a series of physical ailments: a fractured hip, a prostate condition and an inoperable hernia.
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Sid Caesar was born Isaac Sidney Caesar on September 8, 1922, in Yonkers, New York. After graduating high school, he planned on a career in music, playing the saxophone. He even studied saxophone at the Julliard School of Music before becoming an actor. Caesar began in show business by performing in the “Borscht Belt” in the Catskills, as both a musician and a stand-up comic.
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Son of a Yonkers restaurant-owner, Sid Caesar learned first-hand the variety of dialects and accents he would later be known to mimic as a comedian. But his first performing interest was as a musician. He studied saxophone at Julliard, and later played with nationally famous bands (Charlie Spivak, Claude Thornhill, Shep Fields, Art Mooney). During World War II, Caesar was assigned as a musician in the Coast Guard, taking part in the service show "Tars and Spars," where producer Max Liebman overheard him improvising comedy routines among the band members, and switched him over to comedy. Caesar went on to perform his "war" routine in the stage and movie versions of the review, and continued in Liebman's guidance after the war, appearing in theatrical reviews in the Catskills and Florida.
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One of the greatest comedians ever, Sid Caesar has been making America laugh since the 1950s, when he ruled airwaves with his Emmy® Award-winning "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour." Now, for the first time ever, 20 of his fans' all-time favorite sketches have been brought together in one hilarious DVD collection. Selected through an Internet poll, these skits represent some of the most beloved, admired, and side-splittingly funny moments of Sid's career. From his lunchtime gymnastics in "Big Business" to one of television's most famous ad-libs in
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A multiple Emmy award winner, Sid Caesar was born in 1922 in Yonkers, New York, the son of Russian and Polish immigrants. Beginning his career as a saxophone player Caesar rose through the showbiz ranks from comic revues in the Army to New York nightclubs to national television.
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A frail Sid Caesar relies on two assistants to help him navigate his living room and settle into a chair. Once a photographer starts shooting, the 85-year-old comic calls on others for help. A wise statesman. Click. A thinker, holding his finger up as inspiration strikes. Click.
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Sid Caesar