SHELLEY BERMAN

(3 February 1925 - 1 September 2017)

The American stand-up comedian Shelley Berman, who has died aged 92 from complications with Alzeimer’s disease, trained as an actor but became a dance instructor and speech teacher among other jobs, before making his name as a comedian. He was famous for his funny confessional monologues on his view of life and its problems. He toured with the likes of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and later worked solo in night clubs, on television and also recording his routines for albums. He won the first Grammy for a non-musical disc. On television (from 1954) he acted in Peter Gunn, The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Burke’s Law, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart and Curb Your Enthusiasm etc and appeared as himself in his own shows and with Dinah Shore, Jack Paar, Perry Como, Merv Griffin, Judy Garland, Andy Williams Dean Martin and Ed Sullivan, among many others. For the cinema Berman was in The Best Man, Divorce American Style, Every Home Should Have One, Son of Blob (directed by Larry Hagman), Rented Lips, and also Teen Witch, The Last Producer, Elliot Fauman, Ph.D., Motorama, Meet the Fockers, The Holiday and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. He played himself in the documentary feature The Aristocrats, alongside many other gagsters telling the dirtiest joke ever. Shelley Berman was married to Sarah Herman for seventy years and they had two children.

MICHAEL DARVELL