You can guess what happened next. One night, Berle decided to pick on a random mug who turned out to be “Pretty” Amberg, a mobster famous for stabbing guys in the face with flatware. Amberg was also known for being sensitive to insults like the one Berle zinged his way: “Oh, it’s Novelty Night—you’re with your wife.’”
“When the show ended,” Berle remembers, “I went straight to my dressing room.” Not so fast, Uncle Miltie.
“‘Table twelve wants to see you.’”
Berle slunk back out to the house. “Nobody at the table nodded or said hello or even smiled at me. I was getting very nervous, so I said, ‘Did you like the show?’ ”
“‘No. It stunk.’”
Then Amberg grabbed Berle by the face and shoved a fork right into his chin. Luckily, another mobster stepped in between them, allowing Berle to get away with only 8 stitches. He knew it could have been worse.
Jerry Lewis also took his life into his hands by running around the audience and acting like a gibbering idiot. He was up to his shtick one night at the Copa when, Lewis says, “I heard this gruff-sounding voice: ‘Why don’t you knock off that shit and be quiet?’”
Not surprisingly, given his obnoxious persona, Lewis leaned into the bit before Albert Anastasia, from an outfit adorably named Murder, Inc., got out of his chair. “The bull …stuck his finger under my nose. ‘That’s not funny, you son of a bitch. If you open your mouth once more it’ll be without your teeth.’”
Luckily, Lewis’s partner Dean Martin, who allegedly knew guys who knew guys, was able to calm Anastasia down, preserving decades of future telethons.
Toro!
The comedy/crime connection continued into the 1960s and early 1970s. One night in New York, Jerry Orbach, a man we associate with Law and Order, introduced comedian David Steinberg to a big fan, the mobster Joey Gallo.
Steinberg and Gallo hit it off and one night, the comedian was invited to a small dinner party in the mobster’s honor. When Steinberg arrived, he was surprised that Gallo was getting married, right there, right then, and he wanted Steinberg to be the best man. Steinberg was hesitant, but as the saying goes, there are offers you can’t refuse.
Did The Mob Invent The Stand-Up Comic?
Source: Pinoy Daily News
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