| "Professor" Irwin Corey | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 29, 1914 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1938-present |
| Genres | Wit/Word play, improvisational and character comedy, satire |
| Influences | Charlie Chaplin, The Marx Brothers |
| Influenced | Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Shelley Berman, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, Tom Smothers[1] |
| Spouse | Widower (married to Fran Corey from 1941 until her death in 2011);[2] 1 son |
| Website | Official website |
"Professor" Irwin Corey (born July 29, 1914) is an American comic, film actor and activist, often billed as "The World's Foremost Authority". He introduced his unscripted, improvisational style of stand-up comedy at the well-known San Francisco club, the hungry i.
Lenny Bruce once described Corey as "one of the most brilliant comedians of all time".[3]
Contents |
Irwin Corey was born in 1914 in Brooklyn, New York. Poverty-stricken, his parents were forced to place their six children in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York, where Corey remained until the age of 13, when he rode the rails out to California, and enrolled himself at Belmont High School in Los Angeles. During the Great Depression, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, and while working his way back East, became a featherweight Golden Gloves boxing champion.
Corey supported left-wing politics. "When I tried to join the Communist Party, they called me an anarchist."[4] He has appeared in support of Cuban children, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the American Communist Party, and was blacklisted in the 1950s, the effects of which he says still linger to this day. (Corey never returned to Late Night with David Letterman after his first appearance in 1982, which he claimed was a result of the blacklist still being in effect.[5]) During the 1960 election, Corey campaigned for president on Hugh Hefner's Playboy ticket.[4] Corey was a frequent guest on the "Tonight Show" hosted by Johnny Carson during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He accepted the National Book Award Fiction Citation on behalf of Thomas Pynchon for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974. He is also briefly mentioned in Chapter 22 of the Robert A. Heinlein novel Friday, but as "the World's Greatest Authority".
Corey lives in an apartment in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. In 2011 it was reported that for the last 17 years he has panhandled, with the help of a walker, for change from motorists exiting the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, which is near his apartment. He has said that the money is used to purchase medical supplies for children in Cuba.[2]
In 1938, Corey was back in New York, where he got a job writing and performing in Pins and Needles, a musical comedy revue about a union organizer in the "garment district". He claims he was fired from this job for his union organizing activities. Five years later, he was working in New Faces of 1943, and appearing at the Village Vanguard, doing his stand-up comedy routine. He was drafted during World War II, but was discharged after six months, after he claims he convinced an Army psychiatrist that he was a homosexual.
From the late 1940s he cultivated his "Professor" character. Dressed in seedy formal wear and sneakers, with his bushy hair sprouting in all directions, Corey would amble on stage in a preoccupied manner, then begin his monologue with "However ..." He created a new style of doublespeak comedy; instead of making up nonsense words like "krelman" and "trilloweg", like double-talker Al Kelly, the Professor would season his speech with many long and florid, but authentic, words. The professor would then launch into nonsensical observations about anything under the sun, but seldom actually making sense. Changing topics suddenly, he would wander around the stage, pontificating all the while. His quick wit allowed him to hold his own against the most stubborn straight man, heckler or interviewer. One notable fan of Corey's comedy, despite their radically different politics, was Ayn Rand.[6] Theatre critic Kenneth Tynan once wrote of the Professor in The New Yorker, "Corey is a cultural clown, a parody of literacy, a travesty of all that our civilization holds dear, and one of the funniest grotesques in America. He is Chaplin's tramp with a college education".[7]
In 1951, Corey appeared as "Abou Ben Atom", the Genie, in the cult flop Broadway musical Flahooley along with Yma Sumac, the Bil and Cora Baird Marionettes and Barbara Cook (in her Broadway debut). Corey's performance of "Springtime Cometh" can be heard on the show's original cast album.
Corey appeared occasionally in 1950s television as a character actor. He is memorable in an episode of The Phil Silvers Show titled "Bilko's Grand Hotel", in which Corey plays an unkempt Bowery bum being passed off as a hotelier by Sgt. Bilko. The Professor was a frequent guest comic on variety shows and a guest panelist on game shows during the 1960s and 1970s.
Corey became so synonymous with comic erudition that, when a Rhode Island television station wanted a spokesman to explain changes in network affiliations, Corey got the job. Lecturing with pointer in hand, Corey manipulated magnetic signs to demonstrate how television schedules would be disrupted. By the end of the announcement, the visual aids were in shambles and the professor, as usual, had meandered from his original point. Corey often appeared on Steve Allen's late night show, syndicated by Westinghouse, The Steve Allen Show (1962–1964), whereupon he would end his rambling stand-up routine with Allen literally chasing him off the stage. He guest starred on the syndicated talk show version of The Donald O'Connor Show.
Corey appeared in various Broadway productions, including as a gravedigger in a production of Hamlet.[8]
He was married for 70 years to his wife, Fran, who died in May 2011.[2] The Coreys had one son, Richard, a painter, and a grandson named Amadeo.[9][10]