One of my favorite comedians, Irv Benson, died May 19 at his home in Port Jefferson, N.Y. He was 102 and that is not a typo.
Don't know who Irv Benson was? Let me tell you. No, I'll do better than that. I'll show you. Watch this video from the 1966 Milton Berle Show. Benson's the guy in the balcony…
But Irv Benson did a lot more than heckle Milton Berle. Irv was one of the last — maybe the last comic from Minsky's Burlesque. He played there and in vaudeville in the thirties and forties. In the fifties and after, he turned up in a number of touring shows that re-created the golden days of burlesque and was often tapped for TV guest roles. Johnny Carson had him on many times playing a stagehand who interrupted the show. Once teamed with a comic named Jack Mann in a vaudeville act, Benson later teamed with the last surviving straight man from the days of Minsky's, a delightful fellow named Dexter Maitland.
In the eighties, Maitland and Benson provided the comedy doing classic sketches in a Minsky's production that ran at the old Hacienda Hotel in Vegas. (I actually first saw them live around 1982 co-headlining with Sandler and Young and a bevy of Penthouse models in The Penthouse Pet Revue at the Sahara Hotel in Reno.) When I went to Vegas, I'd have dinner with Mr. Maitland and sometimes with Mr. Benson, then I'd take in their show. It may sound like Old Comics doing Older Jokes but I never got tired of watching two expert comedians demonstrate the fine art of Comedic Timing.
I particularly loved this joke which Benson would do with Maitland, though it worked better when he did it with Milton Berle…
BENSONYou're too close to the microphone.
BERLE or MAITLANDHow far should I be?
BENSONYou got a car?
I'm not sure what else to say about the man except that I sure wished I'd thought to roll tape when he got to telling me stories about the old days. Benson was one of those guy who just lived and breathed comedy and he did it all across this country for at least six decades, maybe seven. Utterly, totally remarkable.