Sid Caesar
Comedian / Performer
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Video: Sid Caesar guest-stars on the season four opener of The Hollywood Palace (in color) on September 17, 1966 (from the Internet Archive). Look for the sketch he does with Joyce Jameson at 32:44, which Variety said "...had the air of exaggerated truth. It had funny moments and excellent execution."
Sid Caesar is an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame inductee.
Embeddable video: Sid Caesar Interview Selects:
Resources
Links:
Book: Caesars Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter
Book: Where Have I Been? (autobiography)
DVD: The Sid Caesar Collection: The Magic of Live TV
IMDb entry on Sid Caesar
Wikipedia entry on Sid Caesar
YouTube video player - HTML5 compatible.
Highlights
Sid Caesar on his classic Your Show of Shows character "The Professor"
Clip begins at: 12:48, Duration: 01m 51s- Sid Caesar on the Your Show of Shows foreign film parodies, including one on The Bicycle Thief
Clip begins at: 22:10, Duration: 01m 18s 
Sid Caesar on an infamous case of losing his temper with Mel Brooks during the run of Your Show of Shows
Clip begins at: 11:18, Duration: 01m 04s
Sid Caesar on advice he has for aspiring performers
Clip begins at: 24:22, Duration: 00m 34s- Sid Caesar on how he'd like to be remembered (in six words)
Clip begins at: 24:56, Duration: 00m 07s
Interview
- Part 1
- On his childhood and early influences; on becoming a musician (playing the saxophone)
Clip begins at: 0:0 - On performing in the Catskill Mountains; on his first sketch; on writing an Armed Forces show; on performing in "Tars and Spars"
Clip begins at: 07:20 - On appearing in the movie version of "Tars and Spars"; on his first professional jobs as a comic; on being asked by producer Max Liebman to do television
Clip begins at: 18:01 - Part 2
- On the creation and format of Admiral Broadway Revue; on working in "live" television
Clip begins at: 0:0 - On NBC's popular Saturday night comedy line-up in 1950; on the big budget given to Your Show of Shows; on his insistence that no cue cards be used on his shows; on a workweek of Your Show of Shows; on how the writer's used their personal experiences to create sketches
Clip begins at: 09:06 - On the camaraderie and mutual respect between the cast and crew; on accidentally being dressed in the wrong costume in a sketch during the "live" performance; on the show's ensemble; on some of the show's sketches, including a parody of From Here to Eternity ("From Here to Obscurity") that became the source of a lawsuit
Clip begins at: 15:54 - Part 3
- On Your Show of Shows movie parodies of The Story of Vernon & Irene Castle and The Lost Weekend; on TV standards & practices in the 1950s; on the rehearsal schedule; on forgetting guest star Basil Rathbone's name while introducing him
Clip begins at: 0:0 - On the writing talent on Your Show of Shows (and Caesar's Hour); on classic characters and sketches from Your Show of Shows ("The Professor," "The Hickenloopers")
Clip begins at: 08:53 - On pantomimes; on opera parodies; on foreign film parodies with foreign language double-talk (such as The Bicycle Thief); on parodies of Shane, On the Waterfront, and High Noon
Clip begins at: 19:52 - Part 4
- On winning the Emmy Award in 1952 on the same day his son was born; on being uncomfortable in front of an audience while not in character; on how the pressures of TV led to alcoholism; on a typical workweek of Your Show of Shows; on a fight he had to get a monitor installed when the show changed venues
Clip begins at: 0:0 - On losing his temper, once dangling Mel Brooks outside a window; on his philosophy of keeping a creative flow during the writing process; on the cancellation of Your Show of Shows and the start of Caesar's Hour; on the Caesar's Hour's writing staff as a "dream team"
Clip begins at: 09:15 - On several Caesar's Hour sketches including: "The Commuters," "The Haircuts," Aggravation Boulevard , Pagliacci take-off "Galipacci," and "A Drunk There Was"
Clip begins at: 17:57 - Part 5
- On the end of "live TV" with the introduction of videotape in the mid-to-late 1950s; on his lack of immediate career plans following Caesar's Hour; on his BBC series Sid Caesar Invites You (briefly); on the failure of his ABC series (also called) Sid Caesar Invites You; on overextending himself with his work in the 1960s; on his salary in his heyday
Clip begins at: 0:0 - On the success of the 1967 special The Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris Special; on getting cleaned up after an incident in the late 1970s when he forgot his lines completely while doing "Last of the Red Hot Lovers"; on his self-therapy (which he arrived at recording his own voice into a tape recorder) in the late '70s/early 80s; on his feelings about being inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences "Hall of Fame"; on shows influenced by his work in comedy-variety
Clip begins at: 10:56 - On advice he has for aspiring performers; on how he'd like to be remembered (in six words); on his collaborators including performers Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner and writers Mel Tolkin, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart
Clip begins at: 24:22 - Part 6
- On his collaborators Mel Brooks, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray; on some of his contemporaries, including Ernie Kovacs; on his brother and his wife
Clip begins at: 0:0
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Thank you so much for interviewing this brilliant man. He is an American treasure, and I wish so much that he was well-known by the mainstream today. HIs comedy was class and it was hilarious. It feeds my soul.
I hope he is well. I wanted to see a clip of his receiving the TCA Award in Dec. 2011, but I cannot find it.
A brilliant man. But, I repeat myself.
Kristen Esbensen
kristen.esbensen71@yahoo.com
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