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Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity.[2] His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in the history of New York state, by then-Governor George Pataki in 2003.
Bruce is renowned for paving the way for future outspoken counterculture-era comedians, and his trial for obscenity is seen as a landmark for freedom of speech in the United States.[3][4][5][6] In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him third (behind disciples Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.[7]
After spending time working on a farm, Bruce joined the United States Navy at the age of 16 in 1942, and saw active duty during World War II aboard the USS Brooklyn (CL-40) fighting in Northern Africa; Palermo, Italy, in 1943; and Anzio, Italy, in 1944. In May 1945, after a comedic performance for his shipmates in which he was dressed in drag, his commanding officers became upset. He defiantly convinced his ship's medical officer that he was experiencing homosexual urges.[10] This led to his undesirable discharge in July 1945. However, he had not admitted to or been found guilty of any breach of naval regulations and successfully applied to have his discharge changed to "Under Honorable Conditions ... by reason of unsuitability for the naval service".[11] In 1959, while taping the first episode of Hugh Hefner's Playboy's Penthouse, Bruce talked about his Navy experience and showed a tattoo he received in Malta in 1942.[12]
Bruce is renowned for paving the way for future outspoken counterculture-era comedians, and his trial for obscenity is seen as a landmark for freedom of speech in the United States.[3][4][5][6] In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him third (behind disciples Richard Pryor and George Carlin) on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.[7]
After spending time working on a farm, Bruce joined the United States Navy at the age of 16 in 1942, and saw active duty during World War II aboard the USS Brooklyn (CL-40) fighting in Northern Africa; Palermo, Italy, in 1943; and Anzio, Italy, in 1944. In May 1945, after a comedic performance for his shipmates in which he was dressed in drag, his commanding officers became upset. He defiantly convinced his ship's medical officer that he was experiencing homosexual urges.[10] This led to his undesirable discharge in July 1945. However, he had not admitted to or been found guilty of any breach of naval regulations and successfully applied to have his discharge changed to "Under Honorable Conditions ... by reason of unsuitability for the naval service".[11] In 1959, while taping the first episode of Hugh Hefner's Playboy's Penthouse, Bruce talked about his Navy experience and showed a tattoo he received in Malta in 1942.[12]
Lenny Bruce - Wikipedia
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Lenny Bruce speaking at UCLA 2/9/1966
From the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. Digitized 2013. The views and ideas expressed in these videos are not necessarily shared by ...
Thank you, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for making us aware that October 13 is the anniversary of the birth of WWII U.S. Navy veteran, American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist Leonard Alfred Schneider better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce.
Lenny Bruce speaking at UCLA 2/9/1966
"From the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. Digitized 2013."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbyhH3w27E
Images
1. Lenny’s first brush with the law came in 1951 when he was arrested for impersonating a priest in Miami, Florida.
2. Comedian Lenny Bruce speaks to Customs officials at New York's Idlewild Airport, April 8, 1963 Photo Credit - AP.
3. Leonard Alfred Schneider 'Wouldn't it be nice if all the people who are lonesome could live in one big dormitory, sleep in beds next to each other, talk, laugh, and keep the lights on as long as they want to'
4. Comedian Lenny Bruce gives a victory sign as he leaves a U.S. customs office in New York in 1963 after having been refused entry to Britain 'in the public interest.'
Background from imdb.com/name/nm0115533/bio
"Lenny Bruce Biography
Born October 13, 1925 in Mineola, Long Island, New York, USA
Died August 3, 1966 in Hollywood, California, USA (drug overdose)
Birth Name Leonard Alfred Schneider
Mini Bio (1)
Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider on October 13, 1925, in Mineola, Long Island, New York. His British-born father, Myron, was a shoe clerk, his mother, Sadie, was a dancer. Lenny's parents were divorced when he was a child. To support herself and her son, Sadie Schneider pursued a career in show business and sent Lenny to live with various aunts, uncles and grandparents.
Dropping out of high school, Lenny enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942, which he almost disliked. He got himself discharged after convincing a team of Navy psychologists that he was experimenting with homosexual urges. With some help from his mother, Lenny began doing impressions, one-liners and movie parodies in small nightclubs. In 1948, he obtained some booking as a result of his appearance on the TV show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Lenny married a red-headed stripper named Honey Harlow in 1951, but they were divorced five years later. After Honey was arrested and sent to jail for a narcotics violation, Lenny raised their daughter, Kitty, by himself.
Slowly, Lenny began working his way up from performing stand-up comedy in seedy New York City strip clubs and jazz clubs. Gradually his act evolved into something wholly different from that of other comics. Onstage, he was a dark, slender, and intense figure who prowled around like a caged animal and spoke into a hand-held microphone. His monologues were peppered with four-letter curse words and Yiddish expressions. In his act, Lenny liked to expose racist attitudes by forcing his audiences to examine their own racial prejudices. In another act bashing religions, Lenny acted out a conversation between Oral Roberts and the Pope, with both talking in the vernacular of glib show-business personalities. When jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote about Lenny, be began to get the recognition he so badly wanted. Unfortunately, the seedy subculture of strip joints, clubs, and dives had introduced him to hard drugs and fast times.
Through his nightclub acts and record albums, Lenny became the hipster saint of the comedy world, crossing into the line of propriety where others feared to tread. But his foul-speaking acts began to catch up with him when he was arrested in 1961 on obscenity charges following an appearance at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, but a jury found him not guilty. Problems with the authorities and religious groups trying to silence him began to plague him as he appeared in clubs all over the country. In 1964, he was arrested again in New York City on more obscenity charges. During his trial a police officer read notes about Lenny's profane act, which caused the desperate comic to ask the judge to let him do the act in court so the judge could understand his callous humor in context, but the judge refused. Despite support from noted writers, critics, educators and politicians, Lenny was found guilty and sentenced to several months in prison, and was paroled just a few months later. Continually harassed by the police, Lenny became depressed and paranoid. Further prosecutions for obscenity and his drug use drove him toward instability. By 1965, he was broke and in debt. He claimed that every time he got a gig, the local police, wherever he was, would threaten to arrest the club owner if Lenny went onstage.
In February 1966, Lenny traveled to Los Angeles and appeared onstage for the first time in years. He performed for a very small crowd who included a few hecklers and vice cops waiting to arrest him if he should use profanity again. Lenny by this time was bearded, overweight, and haggard, and his performance centered on his current obsessions: his constitutional right of free speech, free assembly, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. When a friend asked him afterwards why he had turned his back on comedy he replied, "I'm not a comedian anymore. I'm Lenny Bruce." On August 3, 1966, Lenny was found dead on the bathroom floor of his Hollywood home. Whatever the details or reasons why, Lenny Bruce was found dead from a drug overdose at the age of 40.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Matthew Patay
Spouse (2)
Honey Bruce Friedman (15 June 1951 - 21 January 1957) ( divorced) ( 1 child)
Jacqueline Fontaine (? - ?) ( divorced)
Trade Mark (2)
His obscene language
Jokes about controversial social issues
Trivia (10)
1. He was the father of Kitty Bruce and the son of Sally Marr.
2. He was born at 11:24am-EST.
3. He appears on the sleeve artwork of the album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles (released in 1967). He is also one of several famous and tragic figures from history to be featured on the sleeve artwork of the album "Clutching at Straws" by rock band Marillion (released in 1987).
4. Information about his death was mentioned in Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's song "7 O'Clock News / Silent Night". He is also mentioned in the lyrics of the Genesis song "Broadway Melody of 1974" from their album "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and R.E.M.'s hit song "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". Bob Dylan wrote a song about him, entitled "Lenny Bruce", which is the fourth track on his 1981 album "Shot of Love".
5. He is given a respectful thank-you in the credits to George Carlin's "Class Clown" album, under his real name, Leonard Schneider.
6. On December 23, 2003, New York Gov. George Pataki granted him a posthumous pardon, a first in New York state history, for an obscenity charge filed after a particularly raunchy performance in 1964 at "Cafe Au Go Go" in New York City's Greenwich Village during which he was said to have used more than 100 obscene words.
7. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy", by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 69-72. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN [login to see]
8. He was #3 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
9. Is portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Lenny (1974), the film version of the Broadway play of same name that earned Cliff Gorman a Tony Award as Best Actor in the role of Lenny Bruce. Gorman later played a Lenny type of character in All That Jazz (1979).
10. As a major supporting character in the EMMY-winning TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017), he is portrayed by Canadian actor Luke Kirby.
Personal Quotes (12)
1. All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the breadline--right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
2. I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.
3. "Life" is a four-letter word.
4. I credit the motion picture industry as the strongest environmental factor in molding the children of my day.
5. Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students who now smoke pot will someday become Congressmen and legalize it in order to protect themselves.
6. If God made the body, and the body is dirty, then the fault lies with the manufacturer.
7. I'll die young, but it's like kissing God.
8. [on André Previn's shock at being presented with a stolen set of books] You're not thinking straight, man. If I had 90 bucks and spent it in order to get you a present, what would be a big deal in that? It wouldn't even make a dent in me! But to steal 'em for you--I'm already on parole, man, and if I had got caught, I would have gone back to jail. Now that's what I call giving you a present.
9. Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
10. The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.
11. A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?". I dunno. It was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.
12. I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write songs like, "What I'm going to do if I grow up".
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Lenny Bruce speaking at UCLA 2/9/1966
"From the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. Digitized 2013."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbyhH3w27E
Images
1. Lenny’s first brush with the law came in 1951 when he was arrested for impersonating a priest in Miami, Florida.
2. Comedian Lenny Bruce speaks to Customs officials at New York's Idlewild Airport, April 8, 1963 Photo Credit - AP.
3. Leonard Alfred Schneider 'Wouldn't it be nice if all the people who are lonesome could live in one big dormitory, sleep in beds next to each other, talk, laugh, and keep the lights on as long as they want to'
4. Comedian Lenny Bruce gives a victory sign as he leaves a U.S. customs office in New York in 1963 after having been refused entry to Britain 'in the public interest.'
Background from imdb.com/name/nm0115533/bio
"Lenny Bruce Biography
Born October 13, 1925 in Mineola, Long Island, New York, USA
Died August 3, 1966 in Hollywood, California, USA (drug overdose)
Birth Name Leonard Alfred Schneider
Mini Bio (1)
Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider on October 13, 1925, in Mineola, Long Island, New York. His British-born father, Myron, was a shoe clerk, his mother, Sadie, was a dancer. Lenny's parents were divorced when he was a child. To support herself and her son, Sadie Schneider pursued a career in show business and sent Lenny to live with various aunts, uncles and grandparents.
Dropping out of high school, Lenny enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942, which he almost disliked. He got himself discharged after convincing a team of Navy psychologists that he was experimenting with homosexual urges. With some help from his mother, Lenny began doing impressions, one-liners and movie parodies in small nightclubs. In 1948, he obtained some booking as a result of his appearance on the TV show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. Lenny married a red-headed stripper named Honey Harlow in 1951, but they were divorced five years later. After Honey was arrested and sent to jail for a narcotics violation, Lenny raised their daughter, Kitty, by himself.
Slowly, Lenny began working his way up from performing stand-up comedy in seedy New York City strip clubs and jazz clubs. Gradually his act evolved into something wholly different from that of other comics. Onstage, he was a dark, slender, and intense figure who prowled around like a caged animal and spoke into a hand-held microphone. His monologues were peppered with four-letter curse words and Yiddish expressions. In his act, Lenny liked to expose racist attitudes by forcing his audiences to examine their own racial prejudices. In another act bashing religions, Lenny acted out a conversation between Oral Roberts and the Pope, with both talking in the vernacular of glib show-business personalities. When jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wrote about Lenny, be began to get the recognition he so badly wanted. Unfortunately, the seedy subculture of strip joints, clubs, and dives had introduced him to hard drugs and fast times.
Through his nightclub acts and record albums, Lenny became the hipster saint of the comedy world, crossing into the line of propriety where others feared to tread. But his foul-speaking acts began to catch up with him when he was arrested in 1961 on obscenity charges following an appearance at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco, but a jury found him not guilty. Problems with the authorities and religious groups trying to silence him began to plague him as he appeared in clubs all over the country. In 1964, he was arrested again in New York City on more obscenity charges. During his trial a police officer read notes about Lenny's profane act, which caused the desperate comic to ask the judge to let him do the act in court so the judge could understand his callous humor in context, but the judge refused. Despite support from noted writers, critics, educators and politicians, Lenny was found guilty and sentenced to several months in prison, and was paroled just a few months later. Continually harassed by the police, Lenny became depressed and paranoid. Further prosecutions for obscenity and his drug use drove him toward instability. By 1965, he was broke and in debt. He claimed that every time he got a gig, the local police, wherever he was, would threaten to arrest the club owner if Lenny went onstage.
In February 1966, Lenny traveled to Los Angeles and appeared onstage for the first time in years. He performed for a very small crowd who included a few hecklers and vice cops waiting to arrest him if he should use profanity again. Lenny by this time was bearded, overweight, and haggard, and his performance centered on his current obsessions: his constitutional right of free speech, free assembly, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. When a friend asked him afterwards why he had turned his back on comedy he replied, "I'm not a comedian anymore. I'm Lenny Bruce." On August 3, 1966, Lenny was found dead on the bathroom floor of his Hollywood home. Whatever the details or reasons why, Lenny Bruce was found dead from a drug overdose at the age of 40.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Matthew Patay
Spouse (2)
Honey Bruce Friedman (15 June 1951 - 21 January 1957) ( divorced) ( 1 child)
Jacqueline Fontaine (? - ?) ( divorced)
Trade Mark (2)
His obscene language
Jokes about controversial social issues
Trivia (10)
1. He was the father of Kitty Bruce and the son of Sally Marr.
2. He was born at 11:24am-EST.
3. He appears on the sleeve artwork of the album "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" by The Beatles (released in 1967). He is also one of several famous and tragic figures from history to be featured on the sleeve artwork of the album "Clutching at Straws" by rock band Marillion (released in 1987).
4. Information about his death was mentioned in Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's song "7 O'Clock News / Silent Night". He is also mentioned in the lyrics of the Genesis song "Broadway Melody of 1974" from their album "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and R.E.M.'s hit song "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)". Bob Dylan wrote a song about him, entitled "Lenny Bruce", which is the fourth track on his 1981 album "Shot of Love".
5. He is given a respectful thank-you in the credits to George Carlin's "Class Clown" album, under his real name, Leonard Schneider.
6. On December 23, 2003, New York Gov. George Pataki granted him a posthumous pardon, a first in New York state history, for an obscenity charge filed after a particularly raunchy performance in 1964 at "Cafe Au Go Go" in New York City's Greenwich Village during which he was said to have used more than 100 obscene words.
7. Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy", by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 69-72. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN [login to see]
8. He was #3 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.
9. Is portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in Lenny (1974), the film version of the Broadway play of same name that earned Cliff Gorman a Tony Award as Best Actor in the role of Lenny Bruce. Gorman later played a Lenny type of character in All That Jazz (1979).
10. As a major supporting character in the EMMY-winning TV series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017), he is portrayed by Canadian actor Luke Kirby.
Personal Quotes (12)
1. All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the breadline--right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
2. I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.
3. "Life" is a four-letter word.
4. I credit the motion picture industry as the strongest environmental factor in molding the children of my day.
5. Marijuana will be legal some day, because the many law students who now smoke pot will someday become Congressmen and legalize it in order to protect themselves.
6. If God made the body, and the body is dirty, then the fault lies with the manufacturer.
7. I'll die young, but it's like kissing God.
8. [on André Previn's shock at being presented with a stolen set of books] You're not thinking straight, man. If I had 90 bucks and spent it in order to get you a present, what would be a big deal in that? It wouldn't even make a dent in me! But to steal 'em for you--I'm already on parole, man, and if I had got caught, I would have gone back to jail. Now that's what I call giving you a present.
9. Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
10. The only truly anonymous donor is the guy who knocks up your daughter.
11. A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?". I dunno. It was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know.
12. I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write songs like, "What I'm going to do if I grow up".
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A real character. I didn't realize he had served in the Navy. Good share this morning Maj Marty Hogan
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