Shelley Berman

Sheldon Leonard Berman, known professionally as Shelley Berman, was born on February 3, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois, to Irene (née Marks) and Nathan Berman. He had a younger brother, Ronald, and was Jewish. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Berman enrolled at Chicago's Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he met fellow student Sarah Herman. The two married on April 19, 1947. Following his studies, Berman launched his career with an acting company in Woodstock, Illinois, before relocating to New York City in 1949 with his wife. In New York he studied acting at the HB Studio and supported himself through a variety of jobs, including cab driver, social director, speech teacher, assistant manager of a drug store, and dance instructor at Arthur Murray Dance Studios. He later found work as a sketch writer for The Steve Allen Plymouth Show.

Berman began his professional life as a straight actor, training at the Goodman Theatre and performing in stock companies in and around Chicago and New York City. In the mid-1950s he became a member of Chicago's Compass Players, the improvisational group that later evolved into The Second City. During his time with Compass, Berman developed solo pieces that frequently employed an imaginary telephone as a stand-in for an onstage partner. In 1957 he was hired as a comedian at Mister Kelly's in Chicago, which led to additional nightclub bookings and a recording contract with Verve Records. His debut album, Inside Shelley Berman, won the first Grammy Award for Best Comedy Performance - Spoken in 1959, and his comedy albums collectively earned him four gold records. On March 12, 1961, he became the first stand-up comedian to perform at Carnegie Hall.

Berman's Broadway career spanned from 1959 to 1980. He appeared in the revue The Girls Against the Boys and in Insideoutsideandallaround with Shelley Berman, and he starred in A Family Affair, Two by Two, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue. In addition to performing, Berman worked as a book writer for the stage.

His television work encompassed both comedic and dramatic roles across decades of programming, including appearances on The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Bewitched, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Night Court, L.A. Law, Friends, Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal, and the revived Hawaii Five-0, among many others. He also served as a panelist and once as the Mystery Guest on the CBS game show What's My Line in the early and mid-1960s, and held a recurring role on the sitcom Walter & Emily. From 2002 to 2009 he portrayed Larry David's father on Curb Your Enthusiasm, a performance that earned him an Emmy Award nomination in 2008.

Among his film appearances were The Best Man (1964), Divorce American Style (1967), Meet the Fockers (2004), The Holiday (2006), and You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008). His voice also served as the inspiration for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Fibber Fox, performed by Daws Butler.

Beyond performing, Berman taught humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California for more than 20 years, eventually holding the title of lecturer emeritus. He also taught for the Improv Olympics program.

In the mid-1960s, Berman and his wife adopted two children, a son named Joshua and a daughter named Rachel. Joshua was diagnosed with a brain tumor while the family was planning his bar mitzvah and died on October 29, 1977, at age 12. Berman and his wife were supporters of the Motion Picture and Television Fund in Woodland Hills, California, contributing their time and resources to the organization. In the 1980s, the Chamber of Commerce in Canoga Park, California, selected Berman to serve a term as the area's honorary mayor.

Berman died on September 1, 2017, from complications from Alzheimer's disease at his home in Bell Canyon, California. He was 92 years old. His archive was donated to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, New York.