Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial Jewish-American stand-up comedian and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s.

Trials and Tribulations

In 1961 Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco; he had used the words cocksucker and to come (for orgasm). Although the jury acquitted him, other communities began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under charges of obscenity. The increased scrutiny also led to an arrest in Philadelphia for drug possession in the same year, and again in Los Angeles, California two years later.

Related Topics:
San Francisco - Cocksucker - Orgasm - Philadelphia - Los Angeles, California

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By the end of 1963, he had become a target of the Manhattan district attorney, Frank Hogan, who was working closely with Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Archbishop of New York. In 1964, he appeared at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village, with undercover police detectives in the audience. Shortly after he left the stage, he was arrested; the complaint again rested on his use of various obscenities. Three judges and no jury presided over his widely-publicized six-month-long trial. Lenny Bruce and club owner Howard Solomon were convicted, in spite of positive testimony and petitions of support from Jules Feiffer, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and James Baldwin as well as Manhattan journalist and television personality Dorothy Kilgallen and sociologist Herbert Gans. Bruce was sentenced to four months in the workhouse; he was set free on bail during the appeals process and died before the appeal was decided. Solomon's conviction was eventually overturned by New York's highest court, the New York Court of Appeals, in 1970.

Related Topics:
Manhattan - Francis Cardinal Spellman - Archbishop of New York - Cafe Au Go Go - Greenwich Village - Jules Feiffer - Norman Mailer - William Styron - James Baldwin - Dorothy Kilgallen - Sociologist - Herbert Gans

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In his later performances, Bruce was known for relating the details of his encounters with the police directly in his comedy routine; his criticism encouraged the police to eye him with maximum scrutiny. These performances often included rants about his court battles over obscenity charges, tirades against fascism and complaints of his denial of his right to free speech.

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He was banned outright from several U.S. cities, and in 1962 he was banned from performing in Australia, having already commenced a tour there. By 1966 he had been blacklisted by nearly every comedy club in the U.S., as owners feared prosecution for obscenity. His last performance was on June 26, 1966 at the Fillmore in San Francisco, on a bill with Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.

Related Topics:
Australia - Blacklist - June 26 - 1966 - The Fillmore - Frank Zappa - The Mothers of Invention

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At the request of Hugh Hefner, Bruce (with the aid of Paul Krassner) wrote his autobiography, which was serialized in Playboy in 1964 and 1965, and later published as the book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.

Related Topics:
Hugh Hefner - Paul Krassner - Playboy - How to Talk Dirty and Influence People

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In 1966, Lenny Bruce was found dead at the age of 40 from a self-administered morphine overdose, in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home. He is interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.

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Bruce was survived by his daughter Kitty Bruce, who now resides in Pennsylvania. His former wife, Honey Harlow Friedman lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, until her death on September 12, 2005. His mother, Sally Marr, a comedienne and talent agent, died on December 14, 1997, in Los Angeles at the age of 91.

Related Topics:
Pennsylvania - Honolulu, Hawaii - September 12 - 2005 - December 14 - 1997 - Los Angeles

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