Marty Feldman

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This article is about the actor. For the football player, see Marty Feldman (American football).
Marty Feldman
Born Martin Alan Feldman
(1934-07-08)8 July 1934
London, England, U.K.
Died 2 December 1982(1982-12-02) (aged 48)
Mexico City, Mexico
Cause of death
 Heart attack
Spouse(s) Lauretta Sullivan
(m. 1959-82, his death)

Martin Alan "Marty" Feldman (8 July 1934[1] – 2 December 1982) was an English comedy writer, comedian and actor, easily identified by his bulbous and crooked eyes. He starred in several British television comedy series, including At Last the 1948 Show and Marty, the latter of which won two BAFTA awards. He was the first Saturn Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Young Frankenstein.

Early life

Feldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev.[2] He recalled his childhood as "solitary".[3]

A BBC documentary explained that a botched operation for his Graves' disease resulted in his eyes being more protruded and misaligned (strabismus).[3] Leaving school at 15, he worked at the Dreamland funfair in Margate.[3] By the age of 20 he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

Career

In 1954, Feldman formed a writing partnership with Barry Took.[3] They wrote a few episodes of The Army Game and the bulk of Bootsie and Snudge, both comedies for the ITV network, and the BBC radio show Round the Horne, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams.[3] This work placed Feldman and Took "in the front rank of comedy writers" according to Denis Norden.[3]

The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show featured Feldman's first screen performances.[3] The other three performers - future Pythons Graham Chapman and John Cleese and future Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor needed a fourth and had Feldman in mind.[3] In one sketch on 1 March 1967, Feldman's character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) for a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. The sketch was revived as part of the Monty Python stage show and on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (both without Feldman).

Feldman was co-author, along with Cleese, Chapman and Brooke-Taylor of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was also written for At Last the 1948 Show.[3] The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was performed during Amnesty International concerts (by members of Monty Python — once including Rowan Atkinson in place of Python member Eric Idle), as well as during Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and other Monty Python shows and recordings. This association has led to the common misconception that the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was a Python sketch, with the origin and co-authorship by non-Python writers Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor overlooked or forgotten.[4] Feldman was also script editor on The Frost Report with future members of Monty Python.[3] He co-wrote the much-repeated Class sketch with John Law, in which Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker) and working class (Corbett).[3]

Following his At Last the 1948 Show, Feldman was given his own series on the BBC called Marty (1968);[3] it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers.[3] Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was renamed It's Marty (the second title being retained for the DVD of the show); in 1971 he was signed to a series co-produced by ATV and ABC TV entitled The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine; this show lasted one season. In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson (producer of Till Death Us Do Part) produced a short sketch series for Feldman on the BBC entitled Marty Back Together Again — a reference to reports about the star's health. But this never captured the impact of the earlier series. The Marty series proved popular enough with an international audience (the first series won the Golden Rose Award at Montreux) to launch a film career. His first feature role was in Every Home Should Have One (1970).[3] Feldman spent time in Soho jazz clubs.[3] He found a parallel between "riffing" in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz.[3]

In 1971, Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the Oz trial.[3] He would not swear on the Bible, choosing to affirm.[3] Throughout his testimony he was disrespectful to the judge after it was implied that he had no religion for not being Christian.[3]

Promotional photo for Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine. The program was taped in London and aired on ABC Television in the United States.

Feldman's performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show and Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine. On film, he was Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore" - a comic response to Wilder's claim that "it's pronounced FRONK-EN-STEEN") in Young Frankenstein (1974) where many lines were improvised. Gene Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part.[3] At one point, Dr Frankenstein (Wilder) scolds Igor with the phrase, "Damn your eyes!" Feldman turns to the camera, points to his misaligned eyes with a grin and says, "Too late!"

Feldman met American comedy writer Alan Spencer on the set of Young Frankenstein when Spencer was a teenager. Spencer was a fan of Feldman as a writer and performer. Feldman offered Spencer guidance that led him to create the television show Sledge Hammer![5]

He also made one LP, I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written by Denis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies).[6] It was re-released as a CD in 2007.

In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Barbara Bouchet in 40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo (Sex with a Smile), a sex comedy. He appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Mel Brooks' Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He guest-starred in the "Arabian Nights" episode of The Muppet Show with several Sesame Street characters, especially Cookie Monster with whom he shared a playful cameo comparing their eyes side by side.His sister lives in Belgium in the town of Sint Niklaas, although she changes her name .

Personal life

Feldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan (29 September 1935 – 12 March 2010) from January 1959 until his death in 1982.[7] She died at age 74 in Studio City, California.[8]

Marty Feldman had a younger sister, Pamela.[9]

Death

Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982 at age 48, during the making of the film Yellowbeard. On the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cites factors that may have contributed to Feldman's death:
Feldman's gravestone in Forest Lawn Memorial Park
"He smoked sometimes half-a-carton (six packs) of cigarettes daily, drank copious amounts of black coffee, and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products". Plus, the high altitude of Mexico City (over 7,000 feet (around 2 100 m) above sea level, where the air is about 20% thinner) probably added more stress on Feldman by forcing his heart and lungs to work harder. Michael Mileham, who made the behind-the-scenes movie Group Madness about the making of Yellowbeard, said that on the day before Feldman died, he and Feldman swam to a small island at a lake in Mexico City where a local was selling lobster and coconuts. Mileham and Feldman used the same knife on their lobsters; Mileham claimed he got shellfish poisoning the next day, and theorised that this could also have contributed to Feldman's death.[citation needed]

He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage.[3]

Filmography

Television series

  • At Last the 1948 Show (1967)
  • Marty (1968)
  • It's Marty (1969)
  • Marty Amok (1970)
  • Marty Abroad (1971)
  • The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1971–1972)
  • The Marty Feldman Show (1972)
  • Marty Back Together Again (1974)
  • The Muppet Show (1981)

References

  1. ↑ Marty Feldman biography — Screen Online, United Kingdom
  2. ↑ "MOVIE MEMORY Marty Feldman 1977". Nydailynews.com. 4 August 2002. Retrieved 2009-08-30. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 Marty Feldman: Six Degrees of Separation, BBC4
  4. ↑ Morris Bright; Robert Ross (2001). Fawlty Towers: fully booked. BBC. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-563-53439-6. Retrieved 29 September 2010. 
  5. ↑ It's Good To Be The King: The Seriously Funny Life Of Mel Brooks by James Robert Parrish
  6. ↑ "Kettering Magazine Issue #2". Bodnotbod.org.uk. Retrieved 2009-08-30. 
  7. ↑ NNDb profile
  8. ↑ according to a story published in the Los Angeles Times on 15 April 2010
  9. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Further reading

  • From Fringe to Flying Circus—Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980 — Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.

External links

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