So many friends wanted to speak at Jan Murray’s July 6 funeral, held in Culver City, Calif., that the rabbi warned mourners, “Just to remind you, Shabbos begins tomorrow night.”The comedian and television host, who died July 2 at the age of 89, was remembered as a giant, “20 feet tall,” and as the “most un-showbiz show business guyRead More
When Irving Brecher did his stand-up act for a room of retired physicians at Beverly Hills’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center it didn’t go so well.“They smiled,” 91-year-old Brecher recalled, “but didn’t want to use up their energy laughing.”But like anyone with a vaudevillian’s instincts, Brecher was able to use the debacleRead More
Two and a half dozen 20-somethings inched forward in their seats as Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei turned on a television set one recent evening in Los Angeles’s Sinai Temple. Suddenly the Upper Traub room of the huge synagogue on Wilshire Boulevard was immersed in a classic episode of “The Simpsons.” In “Like Father, Like Clown,” Krusty theRead More
The Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor includes 14 pages of jokes on death, so when Buddy Hackett passed away in Malibu at age 79 last week, the chapel at Hillside Memorial in Culver City was packed with every comedy icon that hadn’t booked a Fourth of July gig out of town.Sid Caesar sat up front with Jan Murray. Don Rickles was there.Read More
Fairfax is the best avenue in Los Angeles, containing within one miracle mile Little Ethiopia and the Peterson Auto Museum, the L.A. County Museum of Art and a farmers market. Cross Beverly Boulevard and you come upon Russian nightclubs and Israeli cafes. But lately creeping into this “one size feedsRead More
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