Saturday, March 28, 2009

Brother Theodore


Here's someone you may have never seen before. This is Brother Theodore, the man who referred to himself as a "stand up tragedist" rather than a stand up comedian. He held court in the clubs of Greenwich Village in NYC for almost 50 years with his darkly humorous monologues.
He was a man with a real history, he was born Theodore Gottlieb in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1906 in a wealthy Jewish publishing family. He was 32 when the Nazis imprisoned him in Dachau, where he was held until he signed over his family fortune for the sum of 1 Riechsmark.
He was able to go to Switzerland, but was deported for chess hustling! He went to Austria where Albert Einstein, who was a friend of the family, actually his mothers' lover, helped him emigrate to the USA.
He became a monologue artist in clubs and developed a hard core following while occasionally getting work in films. He worked steadily from the early 50's and retired briefly in the 1970's, but only briefly.
A new generation discovered Brother Theodore and he started to appear on televison. This is an appearance on David Letterman from the early 80's...when Letterman had quite a head of hair!
He worked steadily until he died on April 5th, 2001. This is his food rant.....

1 comment:

Jeff said...

Hi. I just noticed your posting for Brother Theodore.

I produced & directed a documentary about him entitled "To My Great Chagrin". It's being shown next Tuesday (8/11) in Los Angeles at The Silent Movie Theater.

Thought you might be interested. And if so, perhaps spread-the-word.

Should you want more information about the film, just go to my web site at www.spontaneous.net

As a fellow Theodorian, thanks in advance for any consideration you may be able to give. And also for keeping Theodore's voice being heard.

- Jeff