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Birth name Sheldon BermanNationality USABirth 3 february 1925 at Chicago (
USA)
Death 1 september 2017 (at 92 years)
Sheldon "Shelley" Berman (born February 3, 1925) is an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, lecturer, philanthropist, and poet.
Biography
Berman has been married to Sarah Herman since April 19, 1947. The two met while they were studying acting at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.
In the mid-1960s, Berman and wife Sarah adopted two children, son Joshua and daughter Rachel. The Bermans were planning Joshua's bar mitzvah when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Joshua died on October 29, 1977 at the age of 12.
Berman has authored three books, two plays, several TV pilot scripts, and numerous poems. For over twenty years, Berman taught humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California, where he is now a Lecturer Emeritus. He continues to do film and television work and make personal appearances across the country year-round.
Berman and his wife are both enthusiastic supporters of the Motion Picture and Television Fund (located in Woodland Hills, California), a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources, and contribute their time and resources to the benefit of the facilities and the residents.
Accusation of plagiarism
In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, 87-year-old Berman accused comedian Bob Newhart of plagiarizing his improvisational telephone routine style, describing its genesis and saying it was a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." He continued, "I was coming to work at night and a guy stopped his car, passed me by, and said 'Hey, Shelley! There's a guy [who] stole your act!'" When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star." Berman later added, "I thought it was a rotten thing to do. I thought the agents who sold him - I thought they were just as guilty as everybody else. But, my God, to go into a town and do my show, and the critics saying that I borrowed some stuff from Newhart..."
When asked in interviews about the telephone issue, Bob Newhart noted that:
"Shelley Berman did it before I did it. Mike (Nichols) and Elaine (May) did a version of it. There was a thing called “Cohen on the Telephone,” which was a very, very early recording by Edison [Records] of a guy on the phone...As a kid growing up, I remember listening to him and he would call his mother up and say, 'Mama, this is Georgie' " - he paused, skillfully - " 'from the money.' ""
On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists:
"As far back as 1920s George Jessel was doing phone conversations with his mother in vaudeville, with the opening line "Hello Mama? This is Georgie." In the 30's and 40's there was this radio comedienne named Arlene "Chatterbox" Harris, who did telephone monologues to one of her "friends." She was featured doing one of them on an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show that featured many old radio entertainers. In the 50's, a great comedienne, Betty Walker, made several appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, doing essentially the same kind of act as Arlene Harris, talking to her friend Ceil. Only it was intensively Yiddishified. Whereas Arlene Harris was white bread, Betty Walker was challah. All of this pre-dated Shelley Berman. Even Mike Nichols and Elaine May, who were contemporaries of Berman's at The Second City, engaged in telephone dialogues, with very similar styled material.
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