From The Writers Alamanc. Happy birthday, Jonathan Winters! Its the birthday of comedian Jonathan Winters, born in Bellbrook, Ohio (1925). He dropped out of high school to join the Marines. When he came home, he studied cartooning and married a fellow art student. One day, his wife read about a talent contest whose prize was a new wristwatch, and she encouraged him to enter — he needed a new watch but they couldnt afford it. He won the contest with impressions of movie stars, and landed a job as a morning DJ on the local radio show. He wasnt very good at getting guests on the show, so instead he made up fake personalities and interviewed himself. Winters set his sights on New York City. He promised his wife he would move back to Ohio after a year if things werent working out, and with $56.46 to his name, he headed to Greenwich Village to crash with friends and try to make it as a stand-up comedian. Things were going pretty well, and he was making people laugh with his impressions of celebrities. One night after a show, an old man who was sweeping the floor came up to him and said that there was nothing new or interesting about impersonating famous people. As Winters told the story, the man said: Whats the matter with those characters in Ohio? Ill bet there are some far-out dudes that you grew up with back in Ohio. Winters took the old mans advice to heart, and two days later he had created one of his most famous characters, an old woman named Maude Frickert who seems like a sweet grandma but has a dirty mind and a weakness for drinking. Winters played her by wearing a Victorian dress and a white wig. He based Maude on several old ladies he knew back in Ohio, including one old aunt who taught him to play poker and drink wine when he was nine years old. He invented other characters based on people he had known growing up — Elwood P. Suggins, the overalls-wearing town hick who used to be fire chief until they realized he was setting all the fires; B.B. Bindlestiff, who claimed he could make money from anything; and Piggy Bladder, the football coach for the State Teachers Animal Husbandry Institute for the Blind. Things went well for a few years, but Winters struggled with the strain of constant traveling. In 1959, he suffered a nervous breakdown — he burst into tears onstage at a nightclub in San Francisco, and when police found him climbing the rigging of a sailboat at Fishermans Wharf, he told them he was from outer space. He spent eight months in a mental hospital, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was something he didnt like to talk about much afterward. He said, If you make a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year and youre talking to the blue-collar guy whos a farmer 200 miles south of Topeka, hes looking up and saying, That bastard makes (all that money) and hes crying about being a manic depressive? Not long after that episode, Winters was hired to play a slow-witted furniture mover in the film Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). He threw himself into improv. He said, Improvisation is about taking chances, and I was ready to take chances. In 1964, he appeared on The Jack Paar Program; Paar gave the comedian a foot-long stick and told him to do something with it. Winters proceeded to act out a fisherman, violinist, lion tamer, canoeist, diplomat, bullfighter, flutist, psychiatric patient, British headmaster, and Bing Crosbys golf club. Winters appeared in many TV shows and films, and was an inspiration to an entire generation of comedians, especially Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. He appeared on the final season of Williams sitcom Mork and Mindy, and Winters improvisations were so funny that people at Paramount Studios would pack the soundstage to watch him. He died earlier this year. He said, I couldnt wait for success, so I went ahead without it.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:54:26 +0000
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