- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMorton Lyon Sahl
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Crowned as leading the new breed of modern comedians by Time magazine in 1960, Mort Sahl is the first entertainer ever to appear on its cover. Before comedy clubs existed, Sahl began performing at the hungry i music club in San Francisco in the early 1950s. He differed from other comedians, appearing in casual clothing rather than a suit, skewering popular politicians such as Eisenhower, Joe McCarthy and JFK. Sahl's approach is energetic, tangential, and deep and wide in both social and political scopes, inspiring Woody Allen, George Carlin and countless other comedians.
A 1955 performance with Dave Brubeck was recorded and released (without Sahl's permission), selling as Mort Sahl At Sunset, and recently recognized by the Library of Congress as the first stand-up comedy record album.
When JFK was assassinated in 1963, Sahl regularly targeted the government's official Warren Commission Report during his routines, resulting in the loss of much of Hollywood's support, while maintaining audience popularity with college tours and a best-selling book, Heartland.
Sahl is one of the longest, active, performing social satirists, spanning 60 years and 11 presidents.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Chris Britt - Mort Sahl was one of a kind -- a razor-sharp trailblazer of biting, critical comedy in the 1950s and 1960s. He found social satire to be a way to vent, to attack stupidity, and to get audiences to think. No other comedians at the time had his wit, his nervous, staccato delivery, and his dead-on hits on contemporary issue targets. Latter-day comedians such as Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, and Jay Leno found him to be an inspiration. Born Morton Lyon Sahl in 1927 in Quebec, and soon thereafter moving to Los Angeles, California, Sahl was an average model child. There was no indication of what he would later become for the world. As a boy, he was an ROTC member and won an American Legion Americanism Award; his father worked as a court reporter and later, as an FBI administrator. In his late teens, Sahl was drafted and stationed at an Alaskan Air Force base where he was on the base's newspaper staff. Later, he graduated in 1950 the University of Southern California, with a major in city management and traffic engineering. But he realized he loved writing. He tried his hand at it unsuccessfully for a few years, and nearly starved. So, he tried stand-up comedy with a group called the Hungry i (the "i" stood for "intellectual"). He discovered his niche. While 1950s audiences initially despised and misunderstood his unorthodox style of comedy, they soon grew to laud it. Sahl eventually became the darling of the nightclub circuit. He skewered sacred cows at every turn, holding his arrows back neither for liberals nor conservatives. He became one of the first comedians with a best-selling record. He was the first to poke fun at U.S. presidents and other government dignitaries, shocking and delighting audiences. He escaped the ho-hum delivery of many comedians with his casual, free-flowing style and nervous giggle. He never resorted to tired one-liners and never talked down to his audience. One of Sahl's trademarks was carrying a rolled newspaper up on stage with him. His act was always fresh because it impaled controversial current events. He delighted in offending everyone. For a number of years, Sahl rode high on the wave of lucrative recordings, posh club bookings, a prestigious 1960 cover story in Time magazine, and a handful of films. But the disapproving-and-powerful 'Ed Sullivan' refused to let Sahl tell his Kennedy jokes on his variety show. Not long after, Sahl's popularity began to erode. The venting and the sarcasm and the activism began to weary audiences. In 1963, the assassination of Pres. Kennedy deeply affected Sahl. He spoke out loudly and often about a conspiracy and against the Warren Commission. His wobbly career took a nosedive -- he was no longer funny. For years, Sahl struggled to find paying work. Then, the emotional controversy of the Vietnam years and Kent State and Haight-Ashbury in the latter 1960s made him cool again. He was a sought-after guest on TV talk shows, like those of Steve Allen and Merv Griffin, and was received warmly by CBS's "naughty boys," Tom and Dick Smothers, a kindred duo of boat-rockers with their own show, "The Smothers Brothers Show." He never regained his crown as the prince of comedy, but as the years passed, he did all right. He wrote film screenplays for top stars, opened a successful 1988 one-man Broadway show, appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway productions, released more recordings, wrote a few books, and performed into the 21st century his always-keen raillery for a new generation of audiences. While much older, Sahl was still hip.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Vicki McClure Davidson
- SpousesKenslea Ann Motter(1999 - 2009) (divorced)China Lee(October 30, 1970 - August 9, 1991) (divorced, 1 child)Susan J Babior(June 27, 1955 - 1958) (divorced)
- ChildrenMort Sahl Jr.
- ParentsHarry SahlDorothy Schwartz
- Woody Allen said of him, "With Mort Sahl, the whole face of comedy changed completely".
- Emceed the very first Grammy Awards show at the Beverly Hilton Hotel
- After sitting through three hours of a screening of director Otto Preminger's 3.5-hour film Exodus (1960), Sahl turned to Preminger and said, "Otto, let my people go".
- (5 Feb 1997 - 19 Feb 1997) Performing "Mort Sahl's America" in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Attended Compton Junior College before graduating from the University of Southern College with a degree in city management.
- Television is never more false than when it's openly sincere.
- My whole life is a movie. It's just that there are no dissolves. I have to live every agonizing moment of it. My life needs editing.
- The fact is that you can't have a good relationship with a girl who hasn't settled things with her father.
- Washington couldn't tell a lie, [Richard Nixon] couldn't tell the truth, and [Ronald Reagan] couldn't tell the difference.
- Professional comedians, surprisingly, have a lack of humor. They're insensitive to the insanity of our times.
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