Master
of the insult: Comedian Don Rickles dies at 90
Don Rickles late night images
http://www.spike.com/photos/7c2s9v/one-night-only-an-all-star-comedy-tribute-to-don-rickles-don-rickles-late-night-guest-images
Don Rickles on Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts
Don Rickles was Mr. Warmth to a generation of comics as the master of the put-down.
In a career that spanned more than 60 years,
Rickles, who died at age 90 Thursday at his Los Angeles home, appeared in
movies (from Beach Party films of the early '60s to Casino in
1995) and sitcoms (CPO Sharkey) and he
voiced Mr. Potato Head in three of Disney’s Toy Story films.
(”It’s a beautiful check,” he said of the toy character, and his main
accomplishment in the eyes of his grandchildren. “I sit in a booth and just do
me.”)
But he made his living as a a self-described
“aggressive” stage comedian, whose act jelled by accident as he reacted to
hecklers he called “hockey puck.” He outlasted contemporaries such as Alan
King, role model Milton Berle (who dubbed him the Merchant of Venom) and Johnny
Carson, a good friend who hosted him on The Tonight Show more
than 100 times and affectionately called him "Mr. Warmth": "It's
sarcastic, but it's true," Rickles said.
His longtime spokesman, Paul Shefrin,
confirmed his death from kidney failure.
To many fans, he was known as the
prototypical insult comic. He didn’t do punchlines; his act was the ad-libbed
singling out of audience members for ridicule, a response to hecklers. It was
all an act; in person he was gracious and friendly, though not all of his
targets were in on the joke. Did he like the insult label? "No, I don't, but I got it, and it stuck with me and it didn't hurt me." he said. "Insult, tome, was always something offensive."
Rickles, born in Queens, N.Y., to a Lithuanian Jewish
immigrant father, served in the Navy during World War II and enrolled in the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1948, intending to become a serious actor.
But he grew frustrated by bit parts on television.
“I was too big for the screen,” he told USA
TODAY in 2012. “There was no director that knew how to handle me. My comedy, my
strength, my aggressiveness, nobody knew how to handle that. I (auditioned for)
all the big (Broadway) shows, but never got the part, so I started to get
discouraged.” It was then that he turned to stand-up comedy: “My father said,
'The (temple) wants you to do this; they’ll give you $50.' And then I
started to develop my own stuff.”
Comedian Jon Stewart says Rickles’ style is
“curmudgeon humor more than insult humor. He's a guy who's annoyed at you and
things that just bother him." But spend time with Rickles, and you realize
it's an act, Stewart says: "He's a comedic actor who created a character
antithetical to his heart. Some comedians exist as a cautionary tale; he exists
as an aspiration."
Rickles counted comedian Bob Newhart among
his closest pals (”we’re like the odd couple because he’s so low-key”) and was
especially fond of Frank Sinatra, who had "a lot" to do with his
success. While working a Miami Beach nightclub in the late 1950s, he famously
endeared himself to Sinatra after he spotted the mob-connected singer and
instructed him, “Make yourself at home, Frank. Hit somebody.” Sinatra warmed to
an unbowed Rickles, the comedian said, because "I didn't show any
fear," and he affectionately dubbed him “bullet head” because of his bald
pate.
Their friendship extended for decades:
Sinatra gave Rickles, a lifelong Democrat, a career highlight by forcing Ronald
Reagan's 1985 inaugural team to include him, threatening he would otherwise
boycott the festivities. “Frank called me in Hawaii, says ‘Don, get dressed,
get the wife, pack your bags and meet me in Washington,’ ” Rickles recalled in
his staccato New York accent, which endured decades after his move to Los
Angeles. “I said, ‘Why, Frank?’ He said, ‘You’re going to be in the inaugural
for Reagan.’ I says, ‘Frank, what are you, nuts?’ He says, ‘Shut up and do what
I tell you.’ I had no idea what I was going to say.”
But it was a perpetually bemused Carson who
cemented Rickles’ stature by engaging him in ad-libbed banter, and Rickles was
forever grateful. "Johnny didn't mix (socially) as much as Frank,"
Rickles said. "He'd hide under the chair. But when the lights came on,
there was no one better."
After his comedy career took off, he
continued to do occasional serious film roles, appearing with Clint Eastwood in Kelly’s Heroes in 1970 and Robert DeNiro in Martin
Scorsese’s 1995 film Casino. He also was a frequent guest star in TV sitcoms. He
married his wife, Barbara, in 1965, and had two children, daughter Mindy and
son Larry, a producer who won an Emmy Award for a 2007 HBO documentary of his
father. Larry died in December 2011 of pneumonia, at age 41, in what his father
described as “the terrible heartache of my life.”
Rickles never cursed onstage, and his humor
was cutting but never mean-spirited. "I can't please the world. When
you're standing out there doing comedy, not everybody thinks you're funny. But
in my case, I've gained a great deal of respect for my age to still be going,”
he said in 2012. “I'm by the seat of my pants. I've never had a writer in my
life."
And until a few years ago, he was still
working, touring casinos across the country.
"I just feel like I got a lot of time
yet to do. And young people — 35, 22 — they go, 'Hey, Rickles is here, the guy
who calls you a hockey puck or dummy.' That's something that always keeps you
up there."
