Alan King

Alan King, born Irwin Alan Kniberg on December 26, 1927, in New York City, was an American comedian, actor, and satirist whose Broadway career spanned from 1956 to 1970. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants Minnie and Bernard Kniberg, a handbag cutter, King grew up first on the Lower East Side of Manhattan before his family relocated to Brooklyn. He died on May 9, 2004, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan from lung cancer and was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens.

King's entry into performance came early. At 14, he sang "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio program, and though he did not win first prize, he was invited onto a nationwide tour. He left high school at 15 to perform comedy in the Catskill Mountains at the Hotel Gradus, where he was fired after a joke targeting the owner. He subsequently served as emcee at Forman's New Prospect Hotel in Mountaindale, New York. He later worked in Canada in a burlesque house while also boxing professionally, winning 20 consecutive bouts before a broken nose prompted him to abandon the sport. He took work as a doorman at the nightclub Leon and Eddie's and began performing comedy under the surname King, borrowed from the boxer who defeated him.

His early comedy relied on one-liner routines, but after observing Danny Thomas perform in the early 1950s, King shifted to a more conversational style drawing on everyday life. His family's move to suburban Rockville Centre, New York, and later to Kings Point, Long Island, where he lived for the rest of his life, supplied material about suburban existence that resonated with American audiences during the postwar migration to the suburbs. He also worked the Catskill circuit known as the Borscht Belt, as many Jewish comedians of his generation did.

King built his national profile through television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Perry Como Show, and The Garry Moore Show. Living near New York City, he was frequently available as a short-notice fill-in for Sullivan and became a regular guest host on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He performed at President John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball in 1961 and hosted the Academy Awards ceremony in 1972. CBS aired two unsold television pilots both titled The Alan King Show, the first on September 8, 1961, and the second on July 12, 1986.

Before his television prominence, King had been opening for performers including Judy Garland, Patti Page, Nat King Cole, Billy Eckstine, Lena Horne, and Tony Martin. His association with Garland extended to Broadway, where he appeared alongside her in a production listed among his stage credits. His Broadway work also included starring roles in The Impossible Years and Guys and Dolls, as well as an appearance in Applause.

King's film career grew substantially over the decades. Tony Martin secured him his first movie role, and he played small parts in films during the 1950s, though he expressed dissatisfaction with stereotypical roles. He described these parts as always being "the sergeant from Brooklyn named Kowalski," a pattern illustrated by his role as Sgt. Buzzer in the 1961 war film On the Fiddle. He developed a more substantial screen presence through repeated collaborations with director Sidney Lumet, beginning with Bye Bye Braverman in 1968 and continuing through The Anderson Tapes in 1971), a starring role in Just Tell Me What You Want in 1980 opposite Ali MacGraw, and an uncredited cameo in Prince of the City in 1981. He appeared in Night and the City in 1992 alongside Robert De Niro, and played corrupt union official Andy Stone in Martin Scorsese's Casino in 1995. He frequently took on gangster roles, including parts in I, the Jury in 1982 and Cat's Eye in 1985. In Memories of Me in 1988, he played the terminally ill father of Billy Crystal's character, described within the film as the king of the Hollywood extras.

Beyond performing, King wrote several books, among them Anybody Who Owns His Own Home Deserves It with Kathryn Ryan in 1962, Help! I'm a Prisoner in a Chinese Bakery in 1964, Is Salami and Eggs Better Than Sex? Memoirs of a Happy Eater in 1985, Name Dropping: The Life and Lies of Alan King with Chris Chase in 1996, Alan King's Great Jewish Joke Book in 2002, and Matzoh Balls for Breakfast and Other Memories of Growing Up Jewish in 2005. He also produced films and served as the long-standing host of the New York Friars Club celebrity roasts, additionally holding the role of the club's historian.

King married Jeanette Sprung in 1947, and they had three children: Andrew, Robert, and Elainie Ray. His philanthropic activities were extensive. He founded the Alan King Medical Center in Jerusalem, raised funds for the Nassau Center for Emotionally Disturbed Children near his home in Kings Point, and established a chair in dramatic arts at Brandeis University. He created the Laugh Well program, which sends comedians to perform for hospital patients. In the 1970s, he organized the Alan King Tennis Classic at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, broadcast nationally on the TVS Television Network, and he also created the Toyota Comedy Festival. In 1988, King became the first recipient of the award for American Jewish humor from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, an award that was subsequently named in his honor. The film Christmas with the Kranks was dedicated to his memory.