Shelley Berman (Archibald Beechcroft) has died. When I looked him up, I found that he had also played a character on two episodes of the 1980s Showtime series Brothers (which I was a big fan of), and they named the character Marcus Beechcroft. Can't be a coincidence.
shareIt was probably intended as an homage.
I liked his work in "The Mind and the Matter." The broadness actors back then brought to comedic roles is really a sticking point for me; it's this, and not necessarily the material, that makes old-school comedy so often grating. Thankfully, Berman soft pedals the mugging and delivers work refreshingly restrained and quite endearing. He's the best thing about a not-so-great episode. His rant about "eliminating the people" is especially a keeper.
He also played one of the cops at the end of "Nightmare as a Child."
Wow, that is kind of weird. Last night I was reading about George Carlin (at this website I frequently read some commenter had mentioned how we miss people like George because of his insightful rants about America) on Wikipedia. I was reading all about his career, and then I read about his influences (comics that influenced him) and I got to this guy Mort Sahl who is someone I remember from the 60's but haven't heard about since then. I clicked on his Wikipedia page and started reading about him. And I noticed at one point this sentence: "Nachman states that the "mere idea of a stand-up comic talking about the real world was in itself revolutionary...[and] the comedians who followed him—Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Dick Gregory, Phyllis Diller, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters—were cast in a familiar nightclub mold."[3]:51" And I go, gee, Shelley Berman, isn't he that guy who was in that Twilight Zone, where he wishes everyone was gone but himself. I didn't know he was considered a comedian (well I sort of did I guess, but was surprised to see him listed with people like Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen). So I went to HIS Wikipedia page and I was surprised to find he was still living, as is Mort Sahl still living. This all happened yesterday evening. And now I find out he has just died from the Twilight Zone message board.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Berman
Amazing that he was married to the same woman since 1947.
shareDick Gregory passed away just within the past several days I believe - on the 19th of August.
shareI didn't hear about that. Too many of these incredibly talented people are going.
shareOr maybe it's just that we're getting too old.
shareWe're definitely not getting any younger.
shareWell no, but at least for the present we do have the advantage of growing older. It's difficult to imagine what being young today would be like. The world has changed so much in the 50 years I'm old enough to remember. The exemplars from whom we gained so much are now gone. The lessons they taught remain with us, but passing those lessons on these days would be next to impossible except in the rarest cases.
shareThe only way young people will tolerate a lesson is if it's done the way Serling did it: through entertainment.
shareOh sure. Shared experience plays a fair part in it, too. I have a young teenage cousin who despite being of “modern” vintage does appreciate what you and I might call the finer things – classic Westerns like “Wagon Train,” “Bonanza” and a few others. He’s also a huge fan of “The Twilight Zone” (which I’ll gladly share credit with his Mom for, though it was me who asked if she thought he might be ready for his own dvd set to watch unfettered by the crap that passes for commercial advertising these days.) If I recall, she said he went through the entire series in less than 3 months, and was impressed enough that he sat down and wrote a few short stories of his own after watching episodes. The only readily-available non-youtube “Serling” material he’s never seen is “The Loner” I think, so that may be his birthday gift – or some old-fangled Bob Newhart standup comedy, which I introduced him to a little more than a month ago – with the “Defusing a Bomb” bit from youtube. We shall see.
shareAcquainting him with Newhart is a good idea since he is behind possibly the greatest series finale in the history of TV (it certainly would have amused someone with a penchant for twists like Serling).
Didn't know Shelley Berman had passed---I know he was a comedian, but I also caught a dramatic turn he did on "Peter Gunn" as a guy who man or may not be guilty of a murder. He was actually really good on it, and takes up the whole episode.
shareBerman was actually every bit as good a dramatic actor as was Jonathan Winters I think.
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