Sam Kinison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2007)
Sam Kinison
Sam Kinison on the cover of Rolling Stone
Sam Kinison on the cover of Rolling Stone
Born December 8, 1953(1953-12-08)
Yakima, Washington, U.S.
Died April 10, 1992 (aged 38)
Needles, California, U.S.
Medium stand-up, television, music
Nationality American
Years active 1978-1992
Genres Black comedy, Satire, Observational comedy, Insult comedy
Subject(s) human sexuality, current events, American politics, pop culture, religion
Influences Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor
Influenced Bill Hicks, Jeff Duran, Chris Rock, Jim Carrey, Joe Rogan, Tom Rhodes
Website SamKinison.org

Samuel "Sam" Burl Kinison (December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Kinison was famous for his extremely vitriolic humor and dark, sombre outfits. A former revival-style preacher, his standup routines were most often characterized by intense, angry ranting and punctuated by his trademark scream. Kinison was voted #20 in Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in Yakima, Washington, Kinison was the son of a Pentecostal preacher. His father pastored several churches around the country, receiving little income. Sam later attended high school in East Peoria, Illinois. He also lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a while with his parents. His father is deceased, but his mother still lives in Tulsa. He followed in his father's footsteps, as he was originally a pentecostal preacher before becoming a comedian. Recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a "fire and brimstone" style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. He attended Pinecrest Bible Training Center in Salisbury Center New York. He was forced to leave preaching when he divorced his first wife, at which time he took up comedy.

[edit] Comedy life

Kinison's appearance on HBO's featured Rodney Dangerfield's Ninth Annual Young Comedians Special in the summer of 1984 is widely considered to be his breakthrough performance. Later, during Kinison's appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, David Letterman's introduction of Kinison would prove to be prescient: "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison."

Ironically, Kinison played on his former role as a Bible preaching evangelist--taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at Christianity and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Though he himself was a former preacher, his daring comedy aimed at the church, Christianity and the Bible helped shoot him to stardom. On several video tapes of his stand up comedy, a shot of his personalized license plate reveals the words "EX REV," a play-on term standing for ex reverend.

Kinison might be considered a "heavy metal comedian," since he was occasionally accompanied by a touring band; he also had a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol. In 1988, he recorded a novelty version of The Troggs' "Wild Thing." The record didn't make the Billboard Hot 100, but the video was a hit on MTV, featuring cameos from Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Slash, Billy Idol, rock guitarist Steve Vai, guitarist Frank Zappa's son Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora, Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe, Robbin Crosby, Warren DeMartini and Stephen Pearcy of Ratt and a raunchy "roll on the mat" dance with Jessica Hahn. Sam hammered out some licks on a custom Stratocaster, with an airbrushed picture of his face frozen in his famous scream.

One of his albums featured four songs performed by him and his band, and during one notable The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson performance, he delivered what began as a straightforward version of Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight (click here for the video), which descended into angry ranting during the spoken breakdown.

Some of Kinison's most spontaneous moments came during his frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show. He made an angry phone call on-air to Bobcat Goldthwait, and he embarrassed comedienne Judy Tenuta to the point of driving her off the show, as he sat in with Penn Jillette, Chuck McCann, and Jack Riley. His most notorious stunt resulted in a highly entertaining on-air feud with Stern: he made an on-air promise to bring to the show members of the rock-n-roll band Bon Jovi, with whom Stern was feuding, but they never showed up. It turned out that Bon Jovi had no intention of appearing. Stern's reaction was swift and vindictive, resulting in Kinison's eventual apology, but not before one of the show's funniest moments in which comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Stern both savaged an emotionally-charged phone call between Stern and Kinison, in which both stars used the words "man" and "dude" with each other so often that Gottfried and Stern went into stitches on hearing the playback.

Stern and Kinison eventually made up and paired on Stern's pay-per-view special, U.S. Open Sores. Today, Howard Stern remembers Kinison fondly and acknowledges his comedic genius often on his radio show. In the mid-1990s, Stern purchased the movie rights to Kinison's biography Brother Sam, written by his brother Bill, but later revealed on the air that "no studio was interested in financing the movie," partially because of the comedian's controversial nature, and partially because the story had such a tragic ending. In April 2007, it was revealed on Sirius that it may be made into a TV movie with comedian Jeff Duran[2].

In 1991, Kinison starred in the Fox Network TV show Charlie Hoover, in which he played the inner voice of the title character, appearing as a 12" man. The show lasted only 7 episodes before being canceled.

[edit] Death

Just six days after the wedding to his girlfriend Malika Souiri, Kinison's white Pontiac Firebird Trans Am was struck on U.S. Route 95 by a seventeen-year-old who had been drinking, four miles north of Interstate 40 and several miles west of Needles, California. He had taken US 95 North instead of taking the well known shortcut to Laughlin, Nevada. His best friends J.J. Wall and Carl LaBove were in the van behind him. Kinison got out of his car and fell to the ground, and LaBove picked him up and held him until help came. As they sat on the road, LaBove reports that Kinison was looking down the road and laughed and was talking to somebody and said, "No, not now." Then he laughed and said, "No, not yet," and laughed again. He said, "Ok, ok," then died in the arms of his best friend. Oddly enough, Kinison often joked about drunk driving and the futility of trying to prevent it in his act, firmly stating: "We're going to drink, we're going to drive, we're going to pull it off." His wife survived the accident. The other driver received only minor charges. It has been said the teenage driver was later found to not be over the BAC limit and even gave CPR to Kinison after the accident. However, the veracity of this information has never been verified and appears dubious as the consumption of any alcoholic beverages below the age of 18 in every U.S. state is illegal. Kinison's brother accounts in the documentary Sam Kinison: Why Did We Laugh? that the "kid that hit him was stuck in his truck" and said nothing of any attempt made by the teen to assist Kinison. Kinison was later found to have very slight traces of cocaine in his bloodstream. [3] Friends and relatives insisted that the comedian was 100% sober at the time of the collision.

He is interred with family members at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grave marker gives his full name, his date of birth and death, and an unattributed quote, "In another time and place he would have been called prophet."

[edit] Trivia

  • Tony Scott's 2005 film "Domino," starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke, featured the Sam Kinison Monument in Needles, California. No such monument exists. The "monument" in the film was merely a foam prop.
  • Kinison was considered for the role of Al Bundy in the sitcom Married... with Children, but producers thought he would be too controversial, so Ed O'Neill won the part (after the producers rejected Michael Richards for the role). However, Kinison did make an appearance on the series as an angel during a Christmas episode when Al had an It's a Wonderful Life-like moment. That performance is at this link, in two parts; the links are partway down the page
  • He had a supporting role as a history teacher in the 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School; the link is here, the first link on the list
  • He had a supporting role as a Mexican bandit in the 1986 movie ¡Three Amigos!, but his scene was cut. Kinison believed this was due to Chevy Chase being jealous of how Kinison stole several scenes in Back to School.
  • Comedian and impressionist Craig Gass has also performed the voice of Sam Kinison on The Howard Stern Show and in his comedy routine.
  • In the late 80s, Kinison was linked romantically with Seka the porn star, who made an appearance at the beginning, and during the sign-off at the end of the episode of Saturday Night Live that Sam was hosting. The intro features Sam, Seka, and Dana Carvey as "The Church Lady".
  • In Pauly Shore's movie Pauly Shore Is Dead, the closing shot is an epitaph to Kinison. Kinison also "appears" several times in the movie to give Pauly advice. Again, his voice was provided by Craig Gass.
  • Comedian Chris Rock said among his fondest memories from his early days in stand-up was the pleasure of "hangin' with Sam."
  • In the early 1980s, Blackie Lawless was so inspired by Kinison's routine at the Troubadour that he proceeded to write the lyrics for the debut single of W.A.S.P., Animal (Fuck Like a Beast), based on it. In the routine, Kinison went on and on about his (alleged) wife, whom he hated, calling her a beast.
  • Heavy metal band Anthrax sampled one of Kinison's famous screams in their 1987 song I'm the Man.
  • The Bon Jovi video of "Bad Medicine" (1988) is introduced by Kinison.
  • Kinison can be heard in the song "The Kid Goes Wild" by the heavy metal band Babylon AD on their self-titled album (1989).
  • Kinison was close friends with comedian Bill Hicks.
  • Kinison was the voice of Marty's conscience in the Tales From The Crypt episode "For Cryin' Out Loud!" and he has several of his screams throughout the episode, as did Iggy Pop, who appeared as himself.
  • He had a fierce rivalry with fellow stand-up Andrew Dice Clay. In his special Family Entertainment Hour, he tells a fan to take off his Dice t-shirt.
  • Actor and filmmaker Kevin Smith has said he is a big fan of Kinison. He loosely based the appearance of his character Silent Bob on Kinison.
  • Guest appeared in a skit on the racially diverse skit show In Living Color. His short appearance gained the biggest fan reaction of the episode.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time" (2004) (mini)
  2. ^ Register at IMDb.com
  3. ^ 1992 Articles - kinison.com, A Multimedia Tribute to the Life and Comedy of Sam Kinison

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Languages