Volume 5, Number 12 · January 20, 1966
Comics
By Albert Goldman
Yes I Can
by Sammy Davis Jr.
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 612 pp., $6.95
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
by Lenny Bruce
Trident, 188 pp., $5.00
Before he became the Dreyfus of the nightclubs, the comedian Lenny Bruce often officiated as Lord High Chancellor of show business. In a typical sketch, 'The Tribunal,' Bruce arraigns before an imaginary court the most famous entertainers in show business. He orders them to divulge the amount of their weekly earnings and then to demonstrate talents equal to such enormous salaries. The stars are all found guilty of fraud. Minor offenders are let off with light sentences. Frankie Laine's wig is burned; Sophie Tucker's sweat-stained gowns are confiscated. But when the court comes to the case of the man called 'The World's Greatest Entertainer,' Sammy Davis, Jr., the magistrate shows no mercy. 'Mr. Junior' is explaining how he earns $40,000 a week mimicking Jerry Lewis ('Hey Dean, I gotta booboo') when the outraged judge breaks in, 'Strip him of his Jewish star, his stocking cap, his religious statue of Elizabeth Taylor—30 years in Biloxi!'
Review, 2478 words
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