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'''Isaac Sidney Caesar''' (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American
Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to a stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply dialogue. Unlike the slapstick comedy which was standard on TV, his style was considered "avant garde" in the 1950s. He conjured up ideas and scene and used writers to flesh out the concept and create the dialogue. Among the writers who wrote for Caesar early in their careers were [[Mel Brooks]], [[Neil Simon]], [[Larry Gelbart]], [[Carl Reiner]], [[Michael Stewart (playwright)|Michael Stewart]], [[Mel Tolkin]], [[Lucille Kallen]], [[Selma Diamond]], and [[Woody Allen]]. "Sid's was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be," said [[Steve Allen]].
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His TV shows' subjects included satires of real life events and people, and parodies of popular film genres, theater, television shows, and opera. But unlike other comedy shows at the time, the dialogue was considered sharper, funnier, and more adult-oriented. He was "best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy," who some critics called "television's [[Charlie Chaplin]]" and ''[[The New York Times]]'' refers to as the "comedian of comedians from TV's early days."<ref name=NYT />
Honored in numerous ways over 60 years, he was nominated for 11 [[Emmy Awards]], winning twice. He was also
==Early life==
Caesar was the youngest of three sons; his family was Jewish.<ref>[https://forward.com/schmooze/192701/rip-sid-caesar-jewish-comedians-hail-the-chief/ By Anne Cohen, February 12, 2014, Forward]</ref> He was born in [[Yonkers, New York]].<ref name="Paskin">{{Cite web|url=https://www.thejc.com/culture/interviews/interview-sid-caesar-1.18603|title=Interview: Sid Caesar|last=Paskin|first=Barbra|date=October 7, 2010|website=The Jewish Chronicle|access-date=June 25, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/with-a-jewish-infused-style-sid-caesar-revolutionized-television-comedy/|title=With a Jewish-infused style, Sid Caesar revolutionized television comedy|date=March 21, 2014|website=The Jewish Standard|access-date=June 25, 2019}}</ref> His father was Max Ziser (1874–1946) and his mother was Ida (née Raphael) (1887–1975). They likely were from [[Dąbrowa Tarnowska]], Poland.<ref>cite web|url=http://jgsgw.org/SidCaeserArticle.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305130009/http://jgsgw.org/SidCaeserArticle.pdf |date=March 5, 2016 }}</ref>
Max and Ida Caesar ran a restaurant, a 24-hour [[luncheonette]].<ref name="JDF">{{cite news |url=http://forward.com/articles/192680/sid-caesar-brought-jewish-humor-to-middle-america/ |title=Sid Caesar, Brought Jewish Humor to Middle America, Dies at 91|work=[[The Jewish Daily Forward]] |date=February 12, 2014 |access-date=February 13, 2014 | archive-date=February 16, 2014| url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140216004421/http://forward.com/articles/192680/sid-caesar-brought-jewish-humor-to-middle-america/}}</ref>
By waiting on tables, their son learned to mimic the [[patois]], rhythm, and accents of the diverse clientele, a technique he termed ''[[double-talk]]'', which he used throughout his career. He first tried double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat his native-sounding patter in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and Bulgarians. Sid Caesar's older brother, David, was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section."<ref name="WaPo">{{cite news |first=Patricia |last=Brennan |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/sid-caesar-dies-pathbreaking-comedian/2014/02/12/f2e37274-9423-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html |title=Sid Caesar dies; pathbreaking comedian |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=February 12, 2014 |access-date=February 13, 2014 |archive-date=February 16, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140216131719/http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/sid-caesar-dies-pathbreaking-comedian/2014/02/12/f2e37274-9423-11e3-b46a-5a3d0d2130da_story.html }}</ref> They created their earliest family sketches from movies of the day like ''[[Test Pilot (film)|Test Pilot]]'' and the 1927 silent film ''[[Wings (1927 film)|Wings]]''.<ref name=Auto2>{{cite book|title=Caesar's Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter|year=2004|author=Sid Caesar|author2=Eddy Friedfeld|publisher=PublicAffairs |isbn=9781586481520|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/caesarshoursmyli00caesrich}}</ref>
As a boy, Caesar took saxophone lessons and played in small bands to make money during the [[Great Depression]]. When he was 14, Caesar went to the [[Catskill Mountains]] as a [[tenor saxophone|tenor saxophonist]] in the Swingtime Six band with Mike Cifichello and Andrew Galos and occasionally performed in sketches in the [[Borscht Belt]].<ref name=NYT/>
==Career==
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===Style and technique===
Caesar was not a stand-up comedian but a "sketch comic, and actor," wrote one historian. "He conjured up ideas and enhanced scenes, but never wrote a word," and thereby depended on his writers for dialogue.<ref name=Nachman>{{cite book |last1= Nachman |first1=Gerald |author-link1= Gerald Nachman (journalist) |title=Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s|url= https://archive.org/details/seriouslyfunnyre00nach |url-access= registration |location=New York |publisher=Pantheon Books |date=2003 | pages= [https://archive.org/details/seriouslyfunnyre00nach/page/99 99–122] |isbn=
</ref> Caesar was skilled at [[pantomime]], dialects, monologs, foreign language double-talk and general comic acting.<ref name=Newcomb>Newcomb, Horace, editor. ''Encyclopedia of Television'' volume 1, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers (1997) pp. 272–274</ref>
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Some of his writers, like [[Woody Allen]], initially didn't like being among the large team of writers coming up with routines for Caesar, feeling it was too competitive and contributed to hostility among writers. An Allen biographer wrote that Allen "...chafed under the atmosphere of inspired spontaneity", although Allen did say that, "Writing for Caesar was the highest thing you could aspire to—at least as a TV comedy writer. Only the presidency was above that." [[Neil Simon]] noted that "we were competitive the way a family is competitive to get dad's attention. We all wanted to be Sid's favorite."<ref name=Nachman/> As part of the competitive atmosphere in ''The Writer's Room'', as it was called, friendship was also critical. [[Larry Gelbart]] explained:
{{blockquote|We were able to be urbane. Between us we read every book. Between us we saw every movie. Between us we saw every play on Broadway. You could make jokes about Kafka or Tennessee Williams. We also had dinner together. We went to movies together. We were all friends. And that was very important. We appreciated each other a lot.<ref name=Maslon>[[Laurence Maslon|Maslon, Laurence]]. ''Make'em Laugh'', Hachette Book Group (2008) pp. 75–79</ref>}}
===Impact on television===
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In 1983, Caesar hosted an episode of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', where he received a standing ovation at the start of the show and was awarded a plaque at the conclusion of the show declaring him an honorary cast member.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://snltranscripts.jt.org/82/82l.phtml | title = Air Date: February 5th, 1983 — Host: Sid Caesar | publisher= SNL Transcripts | access-date= February 12, 2014}}</ref> He released an exercise video, ''Sid Caesar's Shape Up!'', in 1985.<ref>Vettel, Phil. "Et Tu, Sid Caesar (exercise Guru, Too)." August 9, 1985: The Chicago Tribune. [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-08-09/entertainment/8502210879_1_exercise-tape-camera-hotel-room]</ref> In 1987–89, Caesar appeared as Frosch the Jailer in ''[[Die Fledermaus]]'' at the [[Metropolitan Opera]] in New York.<ref>[http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=BibSpeed/gisrch2k.r?Term=Caesar,%20Sid%20%5BActor%5D&limit=500&vsrchtype=no&xBranch=ALL&xmtype=&Start=&End=&theterm=Ca%65sa%72,%20Sid%20%5BAc%74o%72%5D&srt=&x=0&xHome=&xHomePath= Metropolitan Opera Archives]. Accessed May 15, 2013.</ref> In 1987, Caesar starred in the David Irving film ''The Emperor's New Clothes'' with [[Robert Morse]] as the Tailor. Caesar remained active by appearing in movies, television and award shows, including the movie ''[[The Great Mom Swap]]'' in 1995.
In 1996, the [[Writers Guild of America, West]] reunited Caesar with nine of his writers from ''[[Your Show of Shows]]'' and ''[[Caesar's Hour]]'' for a two-hour panel discussion featuring head writer [[Mel Tolkin]], Caesar, [[Carl Reiner]], [[Aaron Ruben]], [[Larry Gelbart]], [[Mel Brooks]], [[Neil Simon]], [[Danny Simon]], [[Sheldon Keller]], and [[Gary Belkin]]. The event was taped, broadcast on PBS in the United States and the BBC in the UK, and later released as a DVD titled ''Caesar's Writers''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://caesarswriters.com/about/ |title=Caesar's Writers | About |publisher=Caesarswriters.com |date=January 24, 1996 |access-date=December 26, 2013}}</ref>
In 1997, he made a guest appearance in ''[[Vegas Vacation]]'' and, the following year, in ''[[The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit]]'' based on a [[Ray Bradbury]] novel. Also that year, Caesar joined fellow television icons [[Bob Hope]] and [[Milton Berle]] at the 50th anniversary of the [[Primetime Emmy Awards]]. [[Billy Crystal]] also paid tribute to Caesar that night when he won an Emmy for hosting that year's Oscar telecast, recalling seeing Caesar doing a parody of [[Yul Brynner]] in ''[[The King & I]]'' on ''Your Show of Shows''. Caesar performed his double-talk in a "foreign dub" skit on the November 21, 2001, episode of ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway? (U.S. TV series)|Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]''
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Caesar died on February 12, 2014, at his home in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 91, after a short illness.<ref name="LATobit">{{cite news |last=McLellan |first=Dennis |url=http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-et-st-sid-caesar-pioneer-of-live-television-comedy-dies-at-91-20140212,0,5712035.story#axzz2t8zjLAHB |title=Sid Caesar, pioneer of live television comedy, dies at 91 |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date= February 12, 2014 |access-date=February 12, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sid-caesar-dead-comedy-titan-679817|title=Sid Caesar Dead: Comedy Titan Was 91|last=Barnes|first=Mike|date=February 12, 2014|website=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|access-date=June 26, 2019}}</ref>
On Caesar's death, [[Carl Reiner]] said, "He was the ultimate, he was the very best sketch artist and comedian that ever existed." [[Mel Brooks]] commented, "Sid Caesar was a giant, maybe the best comedian who ever practiced the trade. And I was privileged to be one of his writers and one of his friends."<ref name="Reuters"/> [[Woody Allen]] stated, "He was one of the truly great comedians of my time".<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26162316|title= Sid Caesar: Mel Brooks and Woody Allen pay tribute|work= BBC News|date= February 12, 2014|accessdate= June 6, 2022}}</ref> [[Jon Stewart]] and ''[[The Daily Show]]'' paid tribute to Caesar at the show's close on February 12, 2014.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.cc.com/video/32a1qm/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-moment-of-zen-sid-caesar-tribute |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410174059/https://www.cc.com/video/32a1qm/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-moment-of-zen-sid-caesar-tribute |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 10, 2021 |title=Sid Caesar Tribute - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 02/12/14 (Video Clip) |publisher=TheDailyShow.com |date=February 12, 2014 |access-date=April 11, 2021}}</ref> ''[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'' republished a brief tribute written by [[Billy Crystal]] in August 2005, in which he said of Caesar and his contemporaries:
{{blockquote|I get nervous when I am with these giants. I always feel like I want to say, Thank you. I am blessed to have grown up in their time of perfection, to have witnessed the utter force of Sid. Live, uncut, daring but not risqué. Never stooping beneath themselves, Sid and this team of icons put forth a raucous, hilarious, and truthful brand of comedy that, 50 years later, is still funny and inspiring, and makes me think ... What kind of comedy would I be doing if I hadn't seen Sid Caesar? Would I be a comedian at all?<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Crystal |first=Billy |url=http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/sid-caesar-billy-crystal |title=All Hail Caesar |magazine=Vanity Fair |date=August 2005 |access-date=2014-02-13}}</ref>}}
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