Daily Podcasts Video Research

How the Yonkers-born son of Jewish immigrants became the king of American comedy

JL;DR SUMMARY Sid Caesar, the seminal figure of American comedy in the early days of television, is the focus of David Margolick's biography, which delves into how Caesar's "Your Show of Shows" revolutionized comedy. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Mel BrooksJewish ComedyCarl ReinerSid CaesarYour Show Of ShowsImogene CocaAmerican TelevisionComedy HistoryDavid MargolickNeil Simon

Places mentioned

Yonkers, New York, United States
"Caesar grew up in Yonkers, New York, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, who ran a rooming house and luncheonette."
New York, United States
"Soon he was playing gigs in the Catskills, where he branched out into comedy to earn a little extra money. By the 1940s, Caesar was back in New York, where he had the great good fortune to meet the Viennese-born Max Liebman."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 66351
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-11-11 05:30:46 UTC
Curated 2025-11-11 08:31:02 UTC