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Sid Caesar 1922 - 2014

Sid Caesar was born on September 8, 1922 in Yonkers, New York United States of America, and died at age 91 years old on February 12, 2014 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, CA. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Sid Caesar.

Sid Caesar

September 8, 1922

Yonkers, New York, United States of America

February 12, 2014

Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California, United States of America

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Sid Caesar Sid Caesar (1922 - 2014)

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Sid Caesar's History: 1922 - 2014

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Introduction

Overview Sidney Caesar was an American comic actor and comedian. With a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for two pioneering 1950s live television series: Your Show of Shows, which was a 90-minute. Born: September 8, 1922, Yonkers, NY Died: February 12, 2014 (age 91 years), Beverly Hills, CA Children: Rick Caesar, Karen Caesar Spouse: Florence Levy (m. 1943–2010) Parents: Max Caesar, Ida Caesar Height: 6′ 2″
09/8

1922

Birthday

September 8, 1922

Birthdate

Yonkers, New York United States of America

Birthplace

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Professional Career

Portrait photo of Sid Caesar Sid Caesar Birthday: Sep 8, 1922 Birthplace: Yonkers, New York, USA A pioneer of television comedy, Sid Caesar was the prodigiously talented star of such legendary variety series as "Your Show of Shows" (NBC, 1950-54) and "Caesar's Hour" (NBC, 1954-57). Gifted beyond compare in so many aspects of comic performance - from physical humor, improvisation, and pantomime to mimicry and his specialty, double-talk - Caesar wowed post-war audiences with his energy and keen eye for the absurd aspects of everyday life and popular culture. His shows, which were a training ground for some of the greatest comedy writers of the 1960s and beyond, were immediate classics, influencing generations of performers and fans. Off-camera, however, Caesar suffered from personal demons, including substance abuse issues, which became unmanageable after the demise of his series; he spent much of the next few decades rebuilding his life and career. By the new millennium, he was overseeing the preservation of his early work, which reminded audiences of his immeasurable impact on TV comedy and performance. His death at the age of 91 on February 12, 2014 was mourned by several generations of comedy fans. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit Silent Movie Grease History of the World: Part I The Cheap Detective Grease 2 Airport 1975 The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu Vegas Vacation
02/12

2014

Death

February 12, 2014

Death date

Unknown
Cause of death

Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California United States of America
Death location

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Obituary

Sid Caesar, Comedian of Comedians From TV’s Early Days, Dies at 91 The rubber-faced Sid Caesar used his comedic guises over the years. By Mervyn Rothstein and Peter Keepnews Feb. 12, 2014 Sid Caesar, a comedic force of nature who became one of television’s first stars in the early 1950s and influenced generations of comedians and comedy writers, died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 91. His death was announced by Eddy Friedfeld, a family spokesman. Mr. Caesar largely faded from the public eye in his middle years as he struggled with crippling self-doubt and addiction to alcohol and pills. But from 1950 to 1954, he and his co-stars on the live 90-minute comedy-variety extravaganza “Your Show of Shows” dominated the Saturday night viewing habits of millions of Americans. In New York, a group of Broadway theater owners attempted to persuade NBC to move the show to the middle of the week, claiming it was harming their Saturday business. Albert Einstein was a Caesar fan. Alfred Hitchcock called Mr. Caesar the funniest performer since Charlie Chaplin. Television comedy in its early days was dominated by boisterous veterans of vaudeville and radio who specialized in broad slapstick and snappy one-liners. Mr. Caesar introduced a different kind of humor to the small screen, at once more intimate and more absurd, based less on jokes or pratfalls than on characters and situations. It left an indelible mark on American comedy. “If you want to find the ur-texts of ‘The Producers’ and ‘Blazing Saddles,’ of ‘Sleeper’ and ‘Annie Hall,’ of ‘All in the Family’ and ‘M*A*S*H’ and ‘Saturday Night Live,’” Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times when he was its chief theater critic, “check out the old kinescopes of Sid Caesar.” A list of Mr. Caesar’s writers over the years reads like a comedy all-star team. Mel Brooks (who in 1982 called him “the funniest man America has produced to date”) did some of his earliest writing for him, as did Woody Allen. So did the most successful playwright in the history of the American stage, Neil Simon. Carl Reiner created one landmark sitcom, “The Dick Van Dyke Show”; Larry Gelbart was the principal creative force behind another, “M*A*S*H.” Mel Tolkin wrote numerous scripts for “All in the Family.” The authors of the two longest-running Broadway musicals of the 1960s, Joseph Stein (“Fiddler on the Roof”) and Michael Stewart (“Hello, Dolly!”), were Caesar alumni as well. Mr. Caesar headlined “Your Show of Shows,” which pioneered the way for later comic television.CreditCredit...Angel Franco/The New York Times Sketches on “Your Show of Shows” and its successor, “Caesar’s Hour” (1954-57), were as likely to skewer the minutiae of domestic life as to lampoon classic Hollywood movies, arty foreign films, and even operas. Mr. Caesar won Emmys for both those shows. With a rubbery face and the body of a linebacker, Mr. Caesar could get laughs without saying a word, as he did in a pantomime routine in which he and his co-stars, Imogene Coca, Howard Morris, and Mr. Reiner, played mechanical figures on a town clock that goes dangerously out of whack. Fluent in Fake Languages Mr. Caesar was a master of improvisation: In a classic moment during a parody of the opera “Pagliacci,” as he was drawing tears on his face in front of a dressing-room mirror, the makeup pencil broke. Suddenly unable to draw anything but straight lines, he made the split-second decision to play tic-tac-toe on his cheek. He was also deft at handling whatever wordplay his writers gave him. In one guise, as the extremely far-out jazz saxophonist Progress Hornsby, he explained that his new record was in a special kind of hi-fi: “This is the highest they’ve ever fied. If they fi any higher than this, they’re gonna foo!” He could seem eloquent even when his words were total gibberish: Among his gifts was the ability to mimic the sounds and cadences of foreign languages he didn’t actually speak. He was equally convincing as a suburban husband slowly figuring out that his wife, played by Ms. Coca, had wrecked the car (a comic conceit that had not yet become a cliché); as an absurdly enthusiastic member of a bouffant-coiffed rock ’n’ roll trio called the Haircuts; or as a pompous German professor in a battered top hat and moth-eaten frock coat who claimed, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, to be an expert on pretty much everything. One week, the professor was an archaeologist who claimed to have discovered “the secret of Titten-Totten’s tomb.” Asked what the secret was, he became indignant: “You think I’m gonna tell you? You got another guess coming. You take that trip.” Mr. Caesar and Imogene Coca on “Your Show of Shows” in 1953. Two decades after “Your Show of Shows” ruled the Saturday-night airwaves, another live 90-minute show, similarly built around a stock company’s wild and often irreverent sketch comedy, helped change the face of television. But there might not have been a “Saturday Night Live” if Sid Caesar and company hadn’t paved the way. “It was fun, but hard,” Mr. Caesar said in 1984, looking back on his glory years. “I worked six days a week, putting the script together, working with the writers. The show had to be written by Wednesday night because on Thursday, we had to put it on its feet. On Friday, we showed it to the technicians, and on Saturday, it was the show. Sunday was our only day off, and I used to stand under the shower and shake.” He did more than shake. By the age of 30, Mr. Caesar was not just the king of television, earning $1 million a year; he was also an alcoholic and a pill addict. Under his manic exterior, he recalled in “Where Have I Been?,” his 1982 autobiography, he was distraught and filled with self-hatred, tormented by guilt because he did not think he deserved the acclaim he was receiving. He was also given to explosive rages. Mr. Caesar once dangled a terrified Mr. Brooks from an 18th-story window until colleagues restrained him. With one punch, he knocked out a horse that had thrown his wife off its back, a scene that Mr. Brooks replayed in his movie “Blazing Saddles.” By the late 1950s, he was off the air, a victim of changing tastes as well as personal problems. He made a triumphant comeback on Broadway in 1962, playing seven characters in “Little Me,” a musical created by Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh and Mr. Simon. (A concert revival of “Little Me” was part of the Encores! series at City Center this month.) A year later, Mr. Caesar held his own among comedy heavyweights like Milton Berle, Mickey Rooney and Jonathan Winters in the hit movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” But his problems soon got the better of him, and his comeback was short-lived. Most of the 1960s and ’70s were a struggle. They were also a blur: In writing “Where Have I Been?” Mr. Caesar relied on reporting by his collaborator, Bill Davidson, and the recollections of his family, because there was so much he could not remember. (Twenty-one years later, Mr. Caesar and Mr. Friedfeld wrote a second autobiography, “Caesar’s Hours.” This one was more upbeat, mostly because the focus was Mr. Caesar’s comedy career rather than his personal struggles.) Mr. Caesar was not entirely out of the public eye, even in his dark days. He showed up on television now and then; he appeared in a handful of movies, some memorable (Mr. Brooks’s “Silent Movie”) and some less so (the silly horror comedy “The Spirit Is Willing”); he returned to Broadway in 1971, albeit briefly, in “Four on a Garden,” an ill-fated evening of one-act comedies that also starred Carol Channing. And the release in 1973 of “Ten From Your Show of Shows,” a feature-film compilation of sketches, helped keep his reputation alive. But he continued to flounder. Back Up From Rock Bottom The low point came in 1978. He was in two movies that year, “Grease” and “The Cheap Detective,” but by the time they hit theaters, he had hit bottom. Incapacitated by his addictions and neuroses, barely able to get out of bed, he underwent intensive psychotherapy and medical treatment. He found salvation and sanity, he later said, in a form of Jungian self-therapy: recording improvised dialogues each day between himself as Sid, a wise father, and Sidney, his wayward son, whom the father teaches to become a restrained, confident adult. In the 1980s, Mr. Caesar acquired a new addiction: healthful living. He developed a lean, youthful physique by avoiding fat, salt, and sugar and by strenuously working out at least one hour each morning. “Now, instead of knocking life down, tearing it apart, I graciously accept life,” he said. Sidney Caesar was born on Sept. 8, 1922, in Yonkers, the youngest of three sons of Jewish immigrants, Max Caesar and the former Ida Rafael. Max, who emigrated from Poland, owned and operated a luncheonette with his wife, who had come from Russia; young Sid Caesar developed his foreign-sounding double talk by listening closely to the luncheonette’s multinational clientele. The family lived over the restaurant and rented rooms to transients. As a child, Sid was moody, shy, quiet and — although he would later grow to 6 foot 2 — short. He once said he felt “like a midget in the world of giants.” He kept to himself much of the time. He was 3 before he began to talk, and even then, his brothers recalled, he did not say a great deal. His teachers, interviewed at the time of his early television success, remembered a completely unexceptional child. “Sid Caesar was one of the dumbest pupils I ever had,” one teacher said. Image Fostering a new style of comedy on American TV: Mr. Caesar, far right, working with the writers Mel Brooks, far left, Woody Allen and Mel Tolkin.Credit...via Photofest He took up weight lifting. “I developed tremendous muscles, which everyone had to respect,” he said. “The biceps I built were disguises for my fear.” He also learned how to play the saxophone, which he later said saved his life: “It helped me blow off some steam and get rid of some of the anger.” Equally important, the saxophone gave him an entree into show business. At 14, he was hired to play at a Catskills hotel on summer vacation. While there, he also began performing in comedy sketches; he still thought of himself primarily as a saxophonist and would go on to work with the bands of Shep Fields, Claude Thornhill and others, but comedy soon became his primary focus. After graduating from Yonkers High School, he worked as an usher and then a doorman at the Capitol Theater in Manhattan, auditing courses at the Juilliard School because he could not afford to attend. He met Florence Levy in the Catskills and married her in 1943. In World War II, he enlisted in the Coast Guard and did duty on Brooklyn piers. In his free time, he wrote comic material that helped win him a role in “Tars and Spars,” a Coast Guard revue that toured the country and was made into a movie, in which he also appeared, in 1946. A monologue in which he played multiple characters and provided all the sound effects of a World War I aerial dogfight made a strong impression on audiences — and on the show’s director, Max Liebman. In 1948, Mr. Liebman directed Mr. Caesar in the hit Broadway revue “Make Mine Manhattan.” The next year, when Mr. Liebman brought him to television on the weekly “The Admiral Broadway Revue,” Mr. Caesar was hailed as the small-screen discovery of the year. His star rose even higher with the debut of “Your Show of Shows,” also overseen by Mr. Liebman, in February 1950. Image Sid Caesar, right, with friend and comedian Billy Crystal in 2006.Credit...Fred Prouser/Reuters Although the chemistry between Mr. Caesar and Ms. Coca was a large part of the show’s success, NBC decided to split them up and give Ms. Coca her own show after four years. With Mr. Reiner and Mr. Morris still by his side, Mr. Caesar carried on with “Caesar’s Hour,” but after a strong start, the ratings declined, and the show was canceled in 1957. He returned the next year with “Sid Caesar Invites You,” a half-hour ABC show, which reunited him with Ms. Coca. But the old magic was gone, and the show lasted only a few months. “I had no experience in failure,” Mr. Caesar later recalled of the years that followed. “And then, when failure comes, oh, boy, it comes in lumps.” After 20 up-and-down years, Mr. Caesar found himself in 1978 spending four months almost entirely in bed, secretly ordering in beer whenever his wife turned her back. Offered a job in Canada in Mr. Simon’s comedy “Last of the Red Hot Lovers,” he was in such a fog of alcohol and pills that he couldn’t remember his lines. Finally, he sought treatment. “I had to come to terms with myself,” he recalled. “Do you want to live or die? Make up your mind. And I did. I said, ‘I want to live.’ And that was it: the first step on a long journey.” A Career Rejuvenated His return to health and sobriety led to a career revival, aided by two events in 1982: the publication of “Where Have I Been?” and the release of the movie “My Favorite Year,” a fictionalized account of life behind the scenes at “Your Show of Shows” produced by Mr. Brooks, with Joseph Bologna as the show’s Caesar-like star. Through the 1980s and ’90s, until health problems slowed him down, Mr. Caesar worked regularly: on television (he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1983), in films (he worked for Mr. Brooks again in “History of the World: Part I”), in nightclubs (with Ms. Coca), on Broadway (although his show “Sid Caesar and Company: Does Anybody Know What I’m Talking About?” closed quickly in 1989) and at the Metropolitan Opera, where he appeared as Frosch, the drunken jailer, in a 1987 production of “Die Fledermaus.” Mr. Caesar was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1985. Mr. Caesar’s wife, Florence, died in 2010. His survivors include a son, Richard; two daughters, Michele and Karen Caesar; and two grandsons. In a 1987 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Caesar looked back on his early success and subsequent failures, both of which he admitted he had been unprepared to handle, and reflected on the perspective he said he had finally achieved. “Everybody wants to have a goal: I gotta get to that goal, I gotta get to that goal, I gotta get to that goal,” he said. “Then you get to that goal, and then you gotta get to another goal. But in between goals is a thing called life that has to be lived and enjoyed — and if you don’t, you’re a fool.”

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Sid Caesar lived 18 years longer than the average family member when died at the age of 91.

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7 Memories, Stories & Photos about Sid

Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

Rika Dialina in Earl Wilson's column.

This is how she met Sid Caesar and Merv Griffin.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

A Silly Stunt That Worked

Larry Gore was a funny publicist and outlined a ridiculous stunt for me.
Larry never dreamed it would end up in the papers, have influential strangers stop the Greek movie star on the street and get her into Earl Wilson's column, and have her as a guest on The Merv Griffin Show, sitting with Sid Caesar.

You see, a star is home with an open window, and a pigeon steals her "whatever" and now she has to get it back.

Greek movie stars wear a necklace with "A Magic Eye."
So we got a pigeon, faked an X-ray with a Park Avenue Doctor, stuck it in a cage,
and had RIKA DIALINA walk along 57th with "Walter Pigeon" in his cage.
Stirling Silliphant brought her to meet Earl. (I made myself scarce.)
Earl Wilson's column had "Walter Pigeon Gets Around" with the beautiful Rika.
And she received a call to appear on The Merv Griffin Show, wearing a silver minidress under a full-length white mink coat lent by a famous designer named Alexandre. She was carrying Walter Pigeon in his pretty cage.

Sid Caesar yells, "Come on in and put your bird down!"
Merv Griffin, the other guest stars, and the entire audience burst into thunderous laughter and applause.

This stunt continued for a week after the bird escaped, and Rika offered a reward. I did a tie-in with Curley McDimple, and character actress Mary Boylan shows up at the Pulitzer Fountain with Walter Pigeon. She kissed the thousand-dollar check and said, "For years I've been feeding the pigeons and now they're finally feeding me."

Rika was offered a starring role playing Mata Hari but turned down the off-Broadway musical. But Rika got another write-up in Earl Wilson's column.
And Curley McDimple ran another year.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

Sid Caesar

Great Showman.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.

Great TV Comedians.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Howard Morris (l) Sid Caesar (r) Carl Reiner (l) Imogene Coca.

Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

Howard Morris (l) Sid Caesar (r) Carl Reiner (l) Imogene Coca.

Show of Shows.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Amanda S. Stevenson

21 favorites

06/28/2025

Mel Brooks with Sid Caesar

At the beach.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Kathy Pinna

32.9k+ favorites

02/12/2014

Sid Caesar - Your Show of Shows

A picture of Sid Caesar, born Isaac Sidney Caesar to Jewish parents (from Poland and Russia) in Yonkers, New York. He was perhaps best known for the 1950's television show "Your Show of Shows" in which he starred with Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, and Imogene Coca. For those who don't remember "Your Show of Shows", it was a variety show starring these fabulous comedians as well as musical guests and famous actors (Burgess Meredith hosted the premier).

After "Your Show of Shows" ended in 1954, he had his own variety hour on tv (Caesar's Hour) and then went on to star in many television shows and movies. He also wrote several books.

Born in Yonkers on September 8, 1922, he died February 12, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California. He left us a lifetime of laughter.

Date & Place: Not specified or unknown.

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Sid Caesar's Family Tree & Friends

Sid Caesar's Family Tree

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Sid Caesar Sep 8, 1922 - Feb 12, 2014

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Other Biographies

Other Caesar Family Biographies

Caesar, Jane (Dec 27, 1914 - Jan 16, 1994) Caesar, Ethelyn (Jul 17, 1909 - Jun 1980) Caesar, Lawrence (Mar 26, 1924 - Jun 1975) Caesar, Johanna (Sep 4, 1898 - May 1985) Caesar, John (Jun 6, 1916 - Dec 19, 2004) Caesar, Emma (Aug 30, 1933 - Oct 28, 1998) Caesar, Mary (Mar 27, 1938 - Oct 1980) Caesar, Joseph (Sep 28, 1917 - Feb 7, 2002) Caesar, Mary (Apr 26, 1900 - May 1973) Caesar, Samuel (Aug 11, 1914 - Mar 28, 1991)

Caesar, John (Oct 23, 1905 - Feb 1974) Caesar, Athene (Jan 20, 1918 - Oct 14, 1999) Caesar, Clarence (Dec 12, 1881 - Feb 1966) Caesar, Gerald (Oct 6, 1931 - Oct 1973) Caesar, Rhoda (Mar 12, 1932 - Jul 27, 1999) Caesar, Samuel (Jan 12, 1951 - May 17, 1994) Caesar, Mary (Sep 30, 1910 - Mar 1987) Caesar, Asenath (May 1, 1931 - Aug 15, 2002) Caesar, James (Oct 28, 1917 - Nov 2, 1998) Caesar, Archie (Jan 27, 1919 - Feb 1994)

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Sid Caesar 1922 - 2014

Sid Caesar's History: 1922 - 2014

Introduction

Birthday

Professional Career

Death

Obituary

7 Memories, Stories & Photos about Sid

Sid Caesar's Family Tree & Friends

Sid Caesar's Family Tree

Sid's Friends

Other Caesar Family Biographies