“Take this book … (wait for it) … please!”
I paraphrase Henny Youngman just because to appreciate this new volume of paintings, some understanding of who the men (and it’s all men) in these portraits are (or were). As the title says, quite clearly, it’s Old Jewish Comedians. Some of them will be known to everyone, others only to the cognoscenti. Most of them have such unforgetable faces, though, that they will trigger a memory somewhere in the back of your mind.
Drew Friedman is the artist responsible for this collection of wrinkles, liver spots and cigar stubs. Friedman most recently provided the cover painting for Michael Nesmith’s Rays CD and a wonderful illustration to accompany Mojo magazine’s review of Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, but he has a long and varied career. Check out his Web site for other examples of his work.
Friedman doesn’t hesitate to present his subjects in portraits that show all their warts. And working with this motley bunch, there are warts galore. The portraits, save for the front and back covers (Milton Berle and Moe Howard) are all in glorious black and white. But rich black and white (with little touches of sepia for texture). The reproductions are glorious.
Only 36 pages, but each one is a gem. Berle stares out from the front cover, one hand holding a microphone, the other pointing at the audience, a smoldering stogie held firmly in his mouth. He is on stage, in the spotlight. Master of his domain. On the back cover Moe is alone, the other Stooges long passed. His hair greyed now, and in a more contemporary cut, but still over his forehead, an echo of the black bowl cut that made him famous. The look on his face is quizzical. Is he lost, or simply lonely? Friedman is a master of expression. Some might say he’s mean in his interpretations. I think that’s missing the point.
George Burns never looked as tired as he does in the frontispiece. Never in front of a television audience, but Friedman shows him in a dressing gown, backstage or at home, putting on a brave face. You can almost hear him sigh. On the title page, Shecky Greene opens the show with a big smile and a hearty “Good evening ladies and germs!” The back of the heads in the audience look as old as Shecky (or older).
Bud Abbott scowls from his place on a loveseat at the old folks home, forgotten and unloved. Sid Caesar’s bug eyes pop off the page. Red Buttons “never got a dinner,” but he looks pretty happy in his portrait. Rodney Dangerfield is shown in his dressing room, still “on” after a show. Then there’s Phil Foster, Larry Fine, Shelley Berman, Harry Ritz, and the inimitable Buddy Hackett. Each one speckled and wrinkled but still going on with the show … or showing the results of that life.
The ubiquitous Leonard Maltin provides the Foreword. He says, “Drew Friedman loves show business, and so do I; unfortunately the show biz we care about doesn’t exist anymore. It flourished in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, in vaudeville . . . movies . . . television and nightclubs . . . a bygone era.” He concludes, “These guys were funny . . . they stayed [at the top] because they delivered the goods, time after time.” Friedman delivers the goods too. Old Jewish Comedians is simultaneously charming and a bit disturbing. But that’s what art can do. See for yourself. Oh, and don’t miss the Marx Brothers. Or Don Rickles. Or Henny Youngman himself. “Take this book … please!”
(A Blab Book/Fantagraphics, 2006)
