Sam Kinison

Samuel Burl Kinison ( ; December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. A former Pentecostal preacher, he performed stand-up routines that were characterized by intense sudden tirades, punctuated with his distinctive scream. Initially performing for free, Kinison became a regular fixture at The Comedy Store, where he met and eventually befriended such comics as Robin Williams and Jim Carrey.

Kinison's comedy was observational humor, especially towards women and dating, and his popularity grew quickly, leading to appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Late Night with David Letterman, and Saturday Night Live. At the peak of his career in early 1992, he was killed in a car crash, aged 38.

Kinison received a Grammy nomination in 1988 for the single "Wild Thing" from his Have You Seen Me Lately? album, and a posthumous win in 1994 for Best Spoken Comedy Album, Live from Hell.

Early life

Samuel Burl Kinison was born in Yakima, Washington, on December 8, 1953, the son of Marie Florence (née Morrow) and Samuel Earl Kinison, a Pentecostal preacher. The family moved to East Peoria, Illinois, when Kinison was three months old. At the age of three years, Kinison was hit by a truck, which left him with brain damage and epilepsy.

His father pastored several churches around the country, receiving little income. Kinison had two older brothers, Richard and Bill, and a younger brother, Kevin. His parents divorced when Kinison was 11, after which his brother Bill went to live with his father, while Kinison stayed with the rest of the family, despite his protests. Bill described this as the root of much of Sam's anger. Kinison later attended East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria. His mother married another preacher and moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Kinison lived for a while. and Jimmy Pineapple. Hicks cited Kinison as a major influence on his comedic style, noting, "He was the first guy I ever saw to go on stage and not in any way ask the audience to like him." After noting the performance of Bob Nelson, reviewer Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, "the most interesting of the other eight comedians is the savagely misogynistic Sam Kinison. Mr. Kinison specializes in a grotesque animalist howl that might be described as the primal scream of the married man."

In 1985, in Kinison's debut television appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, Letterman's introduction of Kinison warned his audience, "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison." Kinison played on his former role as a Bible-preaching evangelist, taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at the Bible, Christianity, and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Kinison's daring comedy helped shoot him to stardom. reveals the words "EX REV". He was associated with the Los Angeles rock music scene and was occasionally accompanied by a touring band.

In 1986, Kinison appeared in Rodney Dangerfield's film Back to School.

Howard Stern purchased the film rights to Kinison's biography, written by Kinison's brother, reporting in 2008 that HBO would make Brother Sam with Kinison being played by Dan Fogler. In an interview with Sam's brother and manager Bill Kinison, Bill mentioned film deals that were in development at the time of his death; one such deal was a film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and another with Rick Moranis.

Personal life

In May 1988, Kinison's youngest brother Kevin committed suicide at the age of 28; Kevin shot and killed himself after a nervous breakdown at his parents' home in Tulsa. His death devastated Sam.

Kinison acquired much of his material from his first two marriages, to Patricia Adkins (1975–1980) and Terry Marze (1981–1989). He began a relationship with dancer Malika Souiri toward the end of his marriage with Marze.

In 1990, Souiri alleged she was raped by a man Kinison had hired as a bodyguard while Kinison was asleep in the house. The bodyguard stated that the sex was consensual. The jury deadlocked in the subsequent trial, and the charges were later dropped. The incident inspired Kinison to try to go straight with Souiri and join an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter. By March 1990, he was saying to audiences that he was no longer getting high.

Kinison frequented rock shows and often hung out with musicians. In May 1991, Kinison got in a fight with guitarist Slash at a hotel after Slash missed a planned appearance at one of Kinison's shows. Slash stated that Kinison nearly "choked [him] to death" before Slash's bandmate Duff McKagan intervened. Slash and McKagan declined to press charges after the incident.

On April 4, 1992, six days before his death, Kinison married Souiri at the Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas.

In February 2011, the Toronto Sun reported that Kinison had fathered a child with the wife of his best friend and opening act, Carl LaBove, who had been paying child support for the girl for nearly 13 years. LaBove filed legal papers claiming the girl was Kinison's. DNA tests taken from Kinison's brother Bill show a 99.8% likelihood that Kinison was the father of the unnamed woman.

Death

On April 10, 1992, Kinison was driving his Pontiac Turbo Trans Am on Needles Highway northwest of Needles, California, when his vehicle was struck head-on by a pickup truck driven by an intoxicated juvenile. The pickup truck crossed the center line of the roadway while trying to pass another vehicle and moved into Kinison's lane.

His head had smashed the windshield, because he was not wearing his seat belt.

The pickup truck driver pleaded guilty to one count of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and was sentenced to one year of probation and 300 hours of community service. He also had his driver's license suspended for two years in connection with the collision. Kinison's body was buried in a family grave plot at Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His gravestone is inscribed, "In another time and place, he would have been called prophet."

Legacy

Comedian George Carlin's eighth HBO stand-up comedy special, Jammin' in New York, was dedicated to Kinison's memory. At the beginning of the broadcast, the words: "This show is for SAM" appeared on the screen.

After his death, Kinison was fondly remembered by his friends and costars. Ozzy Osbourne said:

On May 23, 1993, FOX aired a special, A Tribute to Sam Kinison. The special contained archival footage of Kinison and stand-up comedy performances by comedians including Robin Williams, Rodney Dangerfield, and Jim Carrey.

Between 2008 and 2013, some press releases indicated a possible dramatic film to be based on the memoir Brother Sam: The Short, Spectacular Life of Sam Kinison, by Kinison's brother Bill Kinison and Steve Delsohn.

Kinison's comedy was at times accused of containing misogyny and homophobia, according to a retrospective on Kinison's career in the Los Angeles Times. For example, the group Queer Nation Nebraska demonstrated on a sidewalk in front of a Kinison show in Lincoln in February 1991, chanting "Antiwoman, antigay, Sam Kinison, go away!"

His Have You Seen Me Lately? album carried a disclaimer sticker stating, "The Material On This Album Does Not Reflect The Views Or Opinions Of Warner Bros. Records." Employees at Warner Brothers requested that their bosses not release it due to the controversial material on Kinison's first album.

In a 2016 article by John Hugar in New York, Hugar contended that the comedy of past comedians, including Kinison, was not positively embraced by younger generations, perhaps because their material has come to be viewed as anachronistically sexist and misogynistic with time. Hugar noted that a modern reevaluation was complicated by the possibility that Kinison could be considered as playing an intentionally shocking character rather than speaking as himself.

Discography

Albums

Louder Than Hell (1986)
Breaking The Rules (1987)
Have You Seen Me Lately? (1988) - RIAA: Gold
Leader of the Banned (1990)
Live from Hell (1993)

Singles

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+List of singles, with selected chart positions

! scope="col" rowspan="2"| Title

! scope="col" rowspan="2"| Year

! scope="col" colspan="1"| Peak chart positions

! scope="col" rowspan="2"| Album

! scope="col" style="width:3em;font-size:90%;"| AUS<br />

! scope="row"| "Wild Thing"

| 1988

| 19

| Have You Seen Me Lately?

Filmography

Film

Savage Dawn (1985)
Back to School (1986)
Three Amigos (1986) (scenes deleted)
Pauly Shore Is Dead (2004) (archive footage)
I Am Sam Kinison (2017) (documentary)

Television

Rodney Dangerfield Hosts the 9th Annual Young Comedians Special (1985)
Saturday Night Live (1985–1986, guest performer; 1986, host)
Rodney Dangerfield: It's Not Easy Bein' Me (1986)
Rodney Dangerfield: Opening Night at Rodney's Place (1989, guest star)
Married... with Children (1989, guest star)
Tales from the Crypt (1990, guest star)
Charlie Hoover (1991, as Hugh)
In Living Color (Season 3, Episode 7, closing skit, Sunday, Nov. 3, 1991)
Fox New Year's Eve Live: 1992 (1991–1992, co-host)

References

External links

A Multimedia Tribute to the Life and Comedy of Sam Kinison
Interview with Bill Kinison