Isaac Sidney Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: Your Show of Shows (1950–1954), which was a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor, Caesar's Hour (1954–1957), both of which influenced later generations of comedians. Your Show of Shows and its cast received seven Emmy nominations between 1953 and 1954 and tallied two wins. He also acted in films; he played Coach Calhoun in Grease (1978) and its sequel Grease 2 (1982) and appeared in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Silent Movie (1976), History of the World, Part I (1981), Cannonball Run II (1984), and Vegas Vacation (1997).
Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to a stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply dialogue. Unlike the slapstick comedy which was standard on TV, his style was considered "avant garde" in the 1950s. He conjured up ideas and scene and used writers to flesh out the concept and create the dialogue. Among the writers who wrote for Caesar early in their careers were Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Michael Stewart, Mel Tolkin, Lucille Kallen, Selma Diamond, and Woody Allen. "Sid's was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be," said Steve Allen.
His TV shows' subjects included satires of real life events and people, and parodies of popular film genres, theater, television shows, and opera. But unlike other comedy shows at the time, the dialogue was considered sharper, funnier, and more adult-oriented. He was "best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy," who some critics called "television's Charlie Chaplin" and The New York Times refers to as the "comedian of comedians from TV's early days." His father was born Max Ziser (1874–1946) and his mother was Ida (née Raffel; 1887–1975). They were probably from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland. It is often claimed that the surname "Caesar" was given by an immigration official at Ellis Island, but there are no documented cases of names changed at Ellis Island.
Max and Ida ran a restaurant, a 24-hour luncheonette.
By waiting on tables, their son learned to mimic the patois, rhythm, and accents of the diverse clientele, a technique he termed double-talk, which he used throughout his career. He first tried double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat his native-sounding patter in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and Bulgarians. Sid Caesar's older brother, David, was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from movies of the day like Test Pilot and the 1927 silent film Wings.
As a boy, Caesar took saxophone lessons and played in small bands to make money during the Great Depression. When he was 14, Caesar went to the Catskill Mountains as a tenor saxophonist in the Swingtime Six band and occasionally performed in sketches in the Borscht Belt. In 1940, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard, and was stationed in Brooklyn, New York, where he played in military revues and shows. Caesar was discharged from the service in 1945. Vernon Duke, the composer of "Autumn in New York", "April in Paris", and "Taking a Chance on Love", was at the same base and collaborated with Caesar on musical revues. and had three children: Michele, Rick and Karen. Later in his career, he performed "Sing, Sing, Sing" with Goodman for a TV show.
Still in the military, Caesar was ordered to Palm Beach, Florida, where Vernon Duke and Howard Dietz were putting together a service revue called Tars and Spars. There he met the civilian director of the show, Max Liebman. When Caesar's comedy got bigger applause than the musical numbers, Liebman asked him to do stand-up bits between the songs. Tars and Spars toured nationally, and became Caesar's first major gig as a comedian.
Television
Caesar's television career began with an appearance on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater in the fall of 1948. In early 1949, Caesar and Liebman met with Pat Weaver, vice president of television at NBC, which led to Caesar's first series, Admiral Broadway Revue with Imogene Coca. The Friday show was simultaneously broadcast on NBC and the DuMont network, and it was an immediate success. However, its sponsor, Admiral, an appliance company, could not keep up with the demand for its new television sets, so the show was canceled after 26 weeks—ironically, on account of its runaway success. Burgess Meredith hosted the first two shows,
thumb|270px|
In 1963, Caesar appeared on television, on stage, and in films. Several As Caesar Sees It specials evolved into the 1963–64 Sid Caesar Show (which alternated with Edie Adams in Here's Edie). He starred with Virginia Martin in the Broadway musical Little Me, with book by Simon, choreography by Bob Fosse, and music by Cy Coleman. Playing eight parts with 32 costume changes, he was nominated in 1963 for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. On film, Caesar and Adams played a husband and wife drawn into a mad race to find buried loot in Stanley Kramer's comedy ensemble It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) which became a box office success and earned six Academy Award nominations.
Style and technique
Caesar was not a stand-up comedian but a "sketch comic, and actor," wrote one historian. "He conjured up ideas and enhanced scenes, but never wrote a word," and thereby depended on his writers for dialogue. Caesar was skilled at pantomime, dialects, monologs, foreign language double-talk and general comic acting.
thumb|left|Caesar in 1972
His sketches were often long, sometimes 10 or 15 minutes, with numerous close-ups showing the expressions on the faces of Caesar and other actors. Caesar relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply spoken dialogue. Unlike slapstick comedy, which was standard on TV, his style was considered avant garde. Caesar "...was born with the ability to write physical poetry," notes comedian Steve Allen, a technique like that used for a silent film comedian.
Writer Mel Tolkin stated that Caesar "didn't like one-line jokes in sketches because he felt that if the joke was a good one, anybody could do it. One-liners would take him away from what drove his personal approach to comedy." Larry Gelbart called Caesar's style theatrical, and called him "...a pure TV comedian." In describing his control during the live performances, actress Nanette Fabray recalled that unlike most comedians, such as Red Skelton, Bob Hope or Milton Berle, Caesar always stayed in character: "He was so totally into the scene he never lost it." He was also able to create imaginary characters. Alfred Hitchcock compared him to Charlie Chaplin, and critic John Crosby felt "he could wrench laughter out of you with the violence of his great eyes and the sheer immensity of his parody." In an article in The Saturday Evening Post in 1953, show business biographer Maurice Zolotow noted that "Caesar relies upon grunts and grimaces to express a vast range of emotions." and during one performance Caesar imitated four different languages but with almost no real words. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar could actually speak only English and Yiddish. In 2008, Caesar told a USA Today reporter, "Every language has its own music ... If you listen to a language for 15 minutes, you know the rhythm and song." Having developed this mimicry skill, he could create entire monologs using gibberish in numerous languages, as he did in a skit in which he played a German general.
Subjects
Among his primary subjects were parodies and spoofs of various film genres, including gangster films, westerns, newspaper dramas, spy movies and other TV shows. Compared to other comedy shows at the time, the dialogue on his shows was considered sharper, funnier and more adult oriented.
Contemporary movies, foreign movies, theater, television shows and opera were targets of satire by the writing team. Often the publicity generated by the sketches boosted the box office of the original productions. Some notable sketches included: "From Here to Obscurity" (From Here to Eternity), "Aggravation Boulevard" (Sunset Boulevard), "Hat Basterson" (Bat Masterson), and "No West for the Wicked" (Stagecoach).
They also performed some recurring sketches. "The Hickenloopers", television's first bickering-couple sketch, predated The Honeymooners. As "The Professor", Caesar was the daffy expert who bluffed his way through his interviews with earnest roving reporter Carl Reiner. In its various incarnations, "The Professor" could be Gut von Fraidykat (mountain-climbing expert), Ludwig von Spacebrain (space expert), or Ludwig von Henpecked (marriage expert). Later, "The Professor" was inspiration for Mel Brooks' "The Two Thousand Year Old Man". The most prominent recurring sketch on the show was "The Commuters", which featured Caesar, Reiner, and Morris involved with everyday working and suburban life situations. Years later, the sketch "Sneaking through the Sound Barrier", a parody of the British film The Sound Barrier, ran continuously as part of a display on supersonic flight at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Working with writers
thumb|Caesar in 1980
Steve Allen claimed, "Sid's was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be." While Caesar did not write his dialogue, he made all final decisions. His writers, such as Mel Brooks, felt they "had a great instrument in Caesar that we could all play, and we played it very well." As for Caesar, Nachman describes him basically as an "inspired idea man who allowed the writers to take more risks" than other TV shows. That April 1954 sketch was said to be "Caesar's personal favorite."
Impact on television
Nachman concludes that "the Caesar shows were the crème de la crème of fifties television," as they were "studded with satire, and their sketches sharper, edgier, more sophisticated than the other variety shows."
According to actress Nanette Fabray, who acted alongside Caesar, "He was the first original TV comedy creation." That same year, Caesar and Max Liebman mined their own personal kinescopes from Your Show of Shows (NBC had lost the studio copies) and they produced the feature film Ten From Your Show of Shows, a compilation of some of their best sketches. In 1974, Caesar said, "I'd like to be back every week" on TV and appeared in the NBC skit-based comedy television pilot called Hamburgers.
thumb|Caesar as guest on The Big Show with host [[Steve Allen in 1980]]
In 1980, he appeared as a double-talking Japanese father for Mei and Kei's Pink Lady and opposite Jeff Altman in the Pink Lady and Jeff show.
In 1983, Caesar hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, where he received a standing ovation at the start of the show and was awarded a plaque at the conclusion of the show declaring him an honorary cast member. He released an exercise video, Sid Caesar's Shape Up!, in 1985. In 1987–89, Caesar appeared as Frosch the Jailer in Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1987, Caesar starred in the David Irving film The Emperor's New Clothes with Robert Morse as the Tailor. Caesar remained active by appearing in movies, television and award shows, including the movie The Great Mom Swap in 1995.
In 1996, the Writers Guild of America, West reunited Caesar with nine of his writers from Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour for a two-hour panel discussion featuring head writer Mel Tolkin, Caesar, Carl Reiner, Aaron Ruben, Larry Gelbart, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, Sheldon Keller, and Gary Belkin. The event was taped, broadcast on PBS in the United States and the BBC in the UK, and later released as a DVD titled Caesar's Writers.
In 1997, he made a guest appearance in Vegas Vacation and, the following year, in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit based on a Ray Bradbury novel. Also that year, Caesar joined fellow television icons Bob Hope and Milton Berle at the 50th anniversary of the Primetime Emmy Awards. Billy Crystal also paid tribute to Caesar that night when he won an Emmy for hosting that year's Oscar telecast, recalling seeing Caesar doing a parody of Yul Brynner in The King & I on Your Show of Shows. Caesar performed his double-talk in a "foreign dub" skit on the November 21, 2001, episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?
thumb|upright|left|Caesar attending [[Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000]]
On September 7, 2001, Caesar, Carl Reiner and Nanette Fabray appeared on CNN's live interview program Larry King Live along with actor, comedian and improvisationist Drew Carey.
In 2003, he joined Edie Adams and Marvin Kaplan at a 40th anniversary celebration for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In 2004, Caesar's second autobiography, Caesar's Hours, was published, and in 2006, Billy Crystal presented Caesar with the TV Land Awards' Pioneer Award. In what TV Land called "...a hilarious, heartfelt, multilingual, uncut acceptance speech," Florence Caesar died on March 3, 2010, aged 88.
Personal life
Caesar was married to Florence Levy for 67 years until her death in 2010.
On Caesar's death, Carl Reiner said, "He was the ultimate, he was the very best sketch artist and comedian that ever existed." Mel Brooks commented, "Sid Caesar was a giant, maybe the best comedian who ever practiced the trade. And I was privileged to be one of his writers and one of his friends."Woody Allen stated, "He was one of the truly great comedians of my time". Jon Stewart and The Daily Show paid tribute to Caesar at the show's close on February 12, 2014. Vanity Fair republished a brief tribute written by Billy Crystal in August 2005, in which he said of Caesar and his contemporaries:
Yet, Mel Brooks a major source in David Margolick's 2025 biography, while highly praising it, also sadly warned in its epigraph, "People are going to say...'Just one question...Who's Sid Caesar?' You're going to get that. 'Who was Sid Caesar.'"
His interment was at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery. He was predeceased by his wife, Florence (2010) and survived by his children Karen, Michelle, and Rick, and two grandsons. His son, Dr. Richard (Rick) Caesar died several months after his father on July 16, 2014.
Filmography
Film
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
|-
|1946
|Tars and Spars
|Chuck Enders
|
|-
|1947
|The Guilt of Janet Ames
|Sammy Weaver
|
|-
|1963
|It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
|Melville Crump
|
|-
|1966
|The Mouse That Roared
|Duchess / Mountjoy / Tully
|Television film
|-
|rowspan=3|1967
|The Busy Body
|George Norton
|
|-
|A Guide for the Married Man
|Man at Romanoff's
|
|-
|The Spirit Is Willing
|Ben Powell
|
|-
|1968
|The Lucy Show. Lucy and Sid Caesar
|Himself
|
|-
|1973
|Ten from Your Show of Shows
|
|Also writer
|-
|1974
|Airport 1975
|Barney
|
|-
|1976
|Silent Movie
|Studio Chief
|
|-
|rowspan=3|1977
|Flight to Holocaust
|George Beam
|Television film
|-
|Fire Sale
|Sherman
|
|-
|Curse of the Black Widow
|Lazlo Cozart
|Television film
|-
|rowspan=3|1978
|The Cheap Detective
|Ezra Dezire
|
|-
|Grease
|Coach Calhoun
|
|-
|Barnaby and Me
|Leo Fisk
|Television film
|-
|rowspan=2|1980
|The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu
|Joe Capone
|
|-
|Thanksgiving in the Land of Oz
|Wizard / U.N. Krust
|Voice
|-
|rowspan=2|1981
|The Munsters' Revenge
|Dr. Dustin Diablo
|Television film
|-
|History of the World: Part I
|Chief Caveman
|
|-
|1982
|Grease 2
|Coach Calhoun
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1984
|Over the Brooklyn Bridge
|Uncle Benjamin
|
|-
|Cannonball Run II
|Fisherman No. 2
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1985
|Love Is Never Silent
|Mr. Petrakis
|rowspan=2|Television film
|-
|Alice in Wonderland
|The Gryphon
|-
|rowspan=2|1986
|Stoogemania
|Doctor Fixyer Mindyer
|
|-
|Christmas Snow
|Snyder
|Television film
|-
|1987
|The Emperor's New Clothes
|The Emperor
|
|-
|rowspan=2|1988
|Freedom Fighter
|Max
|rowspan=2|Television film
|-
|Side by Side
|Louis Hammerstein
|-
|1995
|The Great Mom Swap
|Papa Tognetti
|
|-
|1997
|Vegas Vacation
|Mr. Ellis
|
|-
|1998
|The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
|Sid Zellman
|
|-
|2000
|Globehunters
|Jacob
|Voice<br>Television film
|-
|2004
|Comic Book: The Movie
|Old Army Buddy
|(final film role)
|-
|}
Television
{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Title
! Role
! Notes
|-
|1949
|Admiral Broadway Revue
|Regular Performer
|19 episodes
|-
|1950–54
|Your Show of Shows
|Himself (Regular Performer)
|139 episodes
|-
|1954
|Producers' Showcase
|Napoleon Bonaparte / Himself
|Episode: "Dateline"
|-
|1954–1957
|Caesar's Hour
|Himself (Host)
|70 episodes
|-
|rowspan=2|1958
|Sid Caesar Invites You
|rowspan=3|Himself
|13 episodes
|-
|The All-Star Christmas Show
|Television special
|-
|rowspan=2|1959
|Some of Manie's Friends
|Television special
|-
|The United States Steel Hour
|
|2 episodes
|-
|rowspan=2|1961
|General Electric Theater
|Nick Lucifer
|Episode: "The Devil You Say"
|-
|Checkmate
|Johnny Wilder
|Episode: "Kill the Sound"
|-
|1962
|As Caesar Sees It
|Himself
|Television special
|-
|1963–1964
|The Sid Caesar Show
|rowspan=2|Himself (Host)
|
|-
|1966–1970
|The Hollywood Palace
|
|-
|1965–1973
|The Dean Martin Show
|Himself
|4 episodes, also composer
|-
|rowspan=3|1967
|The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, <br/> Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special
|Himself (Co-host)
|Television special
|-
|The Carol Burnett Show
|Himself
|Season 1, episodes 2 & 14
|-
|The Danny Thomas Hour
|Gregory
|Episode: "Instant Money"
|-
|1968
|That Girl
|Marty Nickels
|Episode: "The Drunkard"
|-
|1969–1971
|Love, American Style
|Bert / John Smith
|2 episodes
|-
|1975
|When Things Were Rotten
|Marquis de la Salle
|Episode: "The French Dis-connection"
|-
|1976
|Good Heavens
|Herman Meltzer
|Episode: "Herman Meltzer"
|-
|1978
|Vega$
|The General
|Episode: "Mother Mishkin"
|-
|1978–1984
|The Love Boat
|Bert Multon / Michael Harmon
|2 episodes
|-
|1979
|Intergalactic Thanksgiving
|King Goochi
|Voice; television special
|-
|1981
|The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo
|The Bomber
|Episode: "Another Day, Another Bomb"
|-
|1982
|Matt Houston
|Prince Sergei Polansky
|Episode: "Recipe for Murder"
|-
|1983
|Saturday Night Live
|Host
|Episode: "#8.12"
|-
|1985
|Amazing Stories
|Lou Bundles
|Episode: "Mr. Magic"
|-
|1986
|Sesame Street
|Himself
|Episode: "#18.19"
|-
|1995
|Love & War
|Mr. Stein
|2 episodes
|-
|rowspan=2|1997
|Life with Louie
|Marty Kazoo
|Voice
|-
|Mad About You
|Uncle Harold
|Episode: "Citizen Buchman"
|-
|2001
|Whose Line Is It Anyway?
|Himself
|Season 4 Episode 15
|-
|}
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Year
! Award
! Category
! Project
! Result
!.
|-
| 1948
| Donaldson Award
| Male Debut in a Musical
|
|
|
|-
| Best Actor
|
|
|-
| 2006
| TV Land Award
| Pioneer Award
|
|
|-
| 2011
| Television Critics Association
| Lifetime Achievement Award
|
|
|}
Honors
- 1960: Caesar was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
- 1985: Caesar was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame
In 2005, The Humane Society of the United States honored Caesar by establishing the "Sid Caesar Award for Television Comedy" among the Genesis Awards given annually to individuals in major news and entertainment media who produce outstanding works that raise public awareness of animal issues. In announcing the 2014 Genesis Award winners on February 14, 2014, the Society paid special homage to Caesar, whom the Society credited as one of its most dedicated supporters.
References
Further reading
External links
<!-- I don't think this is really Caesar's "official" site (esp. since they misspelled his last name on the index page!) It appears to be a merchandising site by Creative Light Entertainment, probably under license but not really what most folks will expect it to be.
-->
- Sid Caesar at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Sid Caesar at the Comedy Hall of Fame