Mort Sahl, Legendary Comedian, Dead at 94

Mort Sahl, was a social satirist, long before Jon Stewart or Bill Maher, he was considered the first modern comedian since Will Rogers. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event topics using improvised monologues and only a newspaper as a prop.

Sahl spent his early years in Los Angeles and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he made his professional stage debut at the hungry i nightclub in 1953. His popularity grew quickly, and after a year at the club, he traveled the country doing shows at established nightclubs, theaters, and college campuses. In 1960 he became the first comedian to have a cover story written about him by Time magazine. He appeared on various television shows, played a number of film roles, and performed a one-man show on Broadway.

Television host Steve Allen claimed that Sahl was “the only real political philosopher we have in modern comedy”. His social satire performances broke new ground in live entertainment, as a stand-up comic talking about the real world of politics at that time was considered “revolutionary”. It inspired many later comics to become stage comedians, including Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters, George Carlin, and Woody Allen. Allen credits Sahl’s new style of humor with “opening up vistas for people like me”.

Numerous politicians became his fans, with John F. Kennedy asking him to write his jokes for campaign speeches, though Sahl later turned his barbs at the president.

He was the best thing I ever saw. There was a need for revolution, everybody was ready for revolution, but some guy had to come along who could perform the revolution and be great. Mort was the one. He was the tip of the iceberg. Underneath were all the other people who came along: Lenny Bruce, Nichols & May, all the Second City. Mort was the vanguard of the group.

— Woody Allen

Sahl was credited with influencing comedians such as George Carlin, Woody Allen, and Jonathan Winters. He was also a friend of another comedy mold-breaker, Lenny Bruce, although his act did not include profanity as Bruce’s did, he worked clean and didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs.

His career took a hit when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and, convinced that the CIA had ordered Kennedy’s death, began reading the Warren Report during his acts. He was effectively blacklisted from television until the 1970s, when the countercultural tide turned in his favor and he was ushered back into the spotlight. His shows and popularity staged a partial comeback that continued over the ensuing decades. A biography of Sahl, Last Man Standing, by James Curtis, was released in 2017. Following a string of successful standup tours in the 1970s, he brought his act to off-Broadway in a one-man show in 1988 called “Mort Sahl’s America.”

Sahl married three times; his only son died in 1996. Sahl performed well into his 80s, every Thursday night at a small theater near San Francisco.

Read more about Mort Sahl’s life at the Wikipedia