..years ago there was a guy by the name, Dick Shawn.
Shawn is best remembered for his roles as Sylvester Marcus, the bohemian but Oedipal beach-bum son of Mrs. Marcus (Ethel Merman), in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and as Lorenzo St. DuBois/Adolf Hitler in the musical Springtime for Hitler, the play within the movie, The Producers. He played the DuBois role as a flower power hippie. He provided the Snow Miser voice in The Year Without a Santa Claus.
He had continued success with his stand-up comedy act that he successfully performed for over 30 years in nightclubs around the world. His award-winning one-man stage show, The Second Greatest Entertainer in the Whole Wide World, was sometimes performed with a unique opening: When the audience entered the theater, they saw a bare stage with a pile of bricks in stage center. When the play began, Shawn emerged from the pile of bricks. The startling effect of this required complete concentration and breath control because the slightest movement of the bricks could ruin the surprise appearance. With such conceptual comedy, Shawn often advanced beyond accepted creative boundaries.
In addition to roles in more than 20 movies and seven Broadway productions, Shawn made numerous television appearances, toured often and periodically performed a one-man show that mixed songs, sketches and pantomime. He was a frequent speaker at the infamous Friars Club Roasts in Los Angeles and New York. At one of the X-rated stag roasts that had overdosed on tasteless routines by previous speakers, Shawn simply walked up to the microphone, took a long pause and "vomited" pea soup onto himself and other speakers at the dais.
His many TV appearances ranged from The Ed Sullivan Show to TV movies, sitcoms, dramas and a music video, "Dance" by the hair metal band Ratt (1986). Among his roles in anthology TV series, he starred in an Amazing Stories episode, Miss Stardust, directed by Tobe Hooper, about a bizarre intergalactic beauty pageant.
[edit] Death on stage
Shawn died on stage on April 17, 1987 in San Diego, California doing a comedy bit about himself and the audience surviving nuclear war. Due to the nature of his routine, audience members were at first unaware that he had suffered a massive heart attack and had died.
Earlier in the act, Shawn portrayed a politician reciting campaign clichés, including, "If elected, I will not lay down on the job." When he fell face down on the stage, the audience thought it was part of the act. After some time had gone by, there were catcalls. Finally, someone appeared on stage, kneeled down to examine Shawn, stood up and asked, "Is there a doctor in the house?" Another person came on stage, turned him over and began administering CPR. The audience was told to go home, but almost no one left since it appeared to be part of Shawn's act. When paramedics arrived, bewildered audience members began leaving, still unsure of what they had witnessed. A notice in the following day's San Diego Union newspaper (not on page one) clarified that Shawn had indeed experienced a heart attack on stage and died.[1]
Writing about Shawn's death, New York Post columnist Cindy Adams recounted what the comedian said about trying to find the right audiences for his brand of comedy: "I can't work places like Vegas or the Catskills where people are belching. Maybe I belong in colleges. At least if I die, I die in front of intelligent people who know what I'm talking about."
Shawn once said, "I think of my relationship with any audience as a love affair. It lasts only a little while, but I always look forward to a happy ending. For both of us."