Marty Feldman Tribute Page

*This page is a tribute to the comedy genius*
"I don't think of myself as a comedian or a clown. I just think of myself as me."
Possessing a gift for writing and fresh innovation - coupled with a natural aptitude for performing - Marty Feldman presented a one-of-a-kind comedic force, a unique mixture of cockney approachability and a cerebral, quick-witted mind. A manic-eyed, mischievous, energized iconoclast complimented with an intelligent, sensitive, articulate demeanor, wrapped up in one small, compact, wiry package.
He was born Martin Alan Feldman on July 8, 1934 - which he once described as "a bad year, nothing else happened" - in London, England. The son of Jewish-Russian immigrants, he lived in what has been referred to as London’s “poverty-stricken” East End, but it seems his childhood was a pleasant one. As he once recalled, “I never suffered from poverty, although our environment was far from affluent.”
However, Britain was hit extremely hard during World War II. Its East End reportedly became a “waste land”. When Feldman was six, he and his family were evacuated from the war torn city to the English countryside. It was there, on a farm, that the young boy made the decision to be a vegetarian, which he would remain his entire life. Treating farm animals as pets, then realizing they were being eaten for dinner, saddened the boy. “I realized that I was eating something that had been running ‘round happily the day before. It seems immoral”, he remembered.
“Neither I nor any of the schools I went to thought it would be a good idea if I remained in them.”
Like many of our favorite English rebels, the academic career of Marty Feldman was tumultuous at best. When his father, who had invested in a dress shop, acquired a bit of money, Feldman recalled “He put me into one school after the other, all around the country. I was thrown out of a few, and left others.” Of course, given the exciting youth Feldman seemed to have had, it is understandable why there would be little time for school efforts. At 15, he lived with some friends in an unused hut in the middle of Soho Square. The comedian once described his stint in Soho as “a completely bizarre, exciting, great period in my life.” At 17, he ran away to Paris and wreaked his manic havoc on the French. He somehow managed to sneak in some study time with GI’s at the Sorbonne. Feldman also worked for an American sculptor pretending to be French, luring gullible tourists to him as customers. Feldman was, of course, working on commission. He was deported from Paris for vagrancy, returning home to England, and frantic parents. He hadn’t given up on aspirations of writing and performance success, however. The eager young man formed a trio with some pals, ‘Morris, Marty, and Mitch’, which played the music hall circuit, or, it’s been said, “played a lot of instruments…badly.”
“But the best moments, when it comes as fast as the typewriter can go, you become a single entity. A third person takes over: Barry Feldman – or Marty Took."
In 1954, he met Barry Took, while both were appearing on the same bill at the Empire Theatre York. As Took recalled in “’Round the Horne: The Complete and Utter History”, “In those days, Marty was quite good looking – blonde and with a small goatee beard, in the hope to pass for a jazz trumpeter I suppose, as that was his ambition.” They got to know each other better the following week, while appearing on the same bill at Weston-super-Mare, realizing they had common ground in interests and upbringing. In 1957, disbanding his performance career for a while – with the inevitable breaking up of ‘Morris, Marty, and Mitch’ – Feldman was working in a bookshop and struggling a bit. Took was fairing better with his performance career, playing bigger theatres such as the Apollo. Around this time, they began writing together, mostly just for fun. By 1959, however, they became more successful, writing for money as well. Some of their earlier gigs included the television shows “The Army Game, “Bootsie and Snudge”, “Educating Archie”, and radio shows for Frankie Howerd. Having “made it”, they now had time to work out more trivial details, such as credits. As Barry Took recalled, “I suppose unconsciously I regarded myself as the head writer of the team – a fact that Marty came to resent. One of our few spats arose over our credits. He’d been moody for a few days and I asked him what was bothering him. He said, ‘Why does your name always come first?’ I was astonished, never having really noticed, but as I was senior in age and experience, it was natural for producers to say ‘Took and Feldman’, rather than the other way around. I said to Marty, ‘Well, if you want your name to be first that’s fine by me, in fact ‘Feldman and Took’ sounds better. So, ‘Feldman and Took’ it became…” However, by their crowning achievement “‘Round the Horne”, Feldman felt he’d been silly, saying to his partner, “Look, you know these people better than I do, and you’ve written for them. I think in this series, your name should go first.” “’Round the Horne” was and still is regarded as groundbreaking. The show’s portrayal of two male “friends” at a time in England where homosexuality was illegal was certainly a bold move. Managing to combine the silly, the absurd, and the subversive to great comedic effect, the show capitalized on the use of the double entendre and, as Took has reflected, “got away with murder”, as while audiences understood the show’s “lingo”, BBC executives often did not. “Round the Horne” ran from 1965 to 1968, with Feldman and Took scripting together until 1967, when Feldman left to pursue performing. Barry Took later fondly remembered, “Writing with Marty was fun.”
As a writer, Feldman was clearly sought after, adept, and fast, churning out work of both quality and quantity at a rapid rate. As he later reflected, at one point in his career, “I was writing 39 TV shows a year for 3 years, plus 2 radio shows a week.” If one looks at some of the TV pilot ideas he submitted, they will also see the broad range of his writing talent. For example, in 1965 Feldman boldly attempted to incorporate an element of pathos in “Comedy Playhouse” with the pilot “Here I Come Whoever I Am”. It told the story of a shy, lonely man who yearned for female companionship. Four years later, Feldman would star in “The Wednesday Play: Double Bill”, which further demonstrated that his performance talents could carry over into more serious portrayals. With that same combination of sensitivity and wit, Feldman also wrote poetry, having met Dylan Thomas as a teenager. However, he wrote them for himself and insisted they were too-self revealing to publish, calling them “telegrams from me to me”.
“I don’t know what love is supposed to mean – other people’s definitions of it. Is it supposed to be like a Walt Disney picture? Or the way it is in a Eugene O’Neill play? I don’t know. It’s your own personal way of working it out.”
On January 14, 1959, he married Lauretta Sullivan. She reportedly asked him to marry her, when he made no move to do so, after nine months of daily dating. But the course of true love never did run smooth. Feldman’s Jewish family did not want him marrying a Catholic, while it seems the Sullivans were more offended at the prospect of the daughter of a butcher marrying a vegetarian. However, eventually all was accepted and everyone became quite close. As Lyn Took remembered in the liner notes for “Round The Horne: The Very Best Episodes”, Feldman wrote his wife’s mother, “Mrs. N. Sullivan of Albany Street, London”, as the winner of one of the Limerick Competitions in an episode of the show. By all accounts, the duo seemed to have an enduring and sincere love and they would remain married until Marty’s death in 1982. Marty described the realism of marriage when he admitted, “We argue. We shout and scream at each other a lot.” But, he never failed to emphasize the love, revealing, “We’re both very difficult to live with, but we can’t conceive of living without each other.” Feldman also acknowledged his wife’s superiority in business know-how, his appreciation for her handling his affairs, and cited her as his most constructive critic on several occasions.
In 1961, during the scripting of “Bootsie and Snudge”, it was discovered that Feldman had severe hyperthyroidism. Doctors believed the condition was probably brought on by overwork and the stresses and demands of a writing career in TV and radio. The condition gave Marty the bug-eyed look which, combined with a beaked and bumpy nose – courtesy of an unsuccessful stint as a boxer - served to form the famous “Feldman face”. On his unique orbs, Feldman once said, "I could have them fixed, but what the hell? This face is a map of what I am, where I’ve been, and what I’ve done in the past."
"Now I'll watch myself performing but I don't really connect with it. For the most part I feel people are talking about somebody else.”
During his stint as head writer of “The Frost Report”, Feldman met several other soon-to-be comedy legends, such as John Cleese and Graham Chapman. David Frost had told another writer, Tim Brooke-Taylor that he would like to do a comedy show and wanted him to choose three other people for the cast. Brooke-Taylor immediately chose Chapman and Cleese, having known them from college. The three of them had become friendly with Feldman and wanted him for the show as well. However, up until then Marty had only been known as a writer and David Frost felt that the audience would only be put off my Feldman’s “funny eyes” and “grotesque appearance”. The trio was adamant and finally convinced Frost to give Marty a chance. When their show “At Last: The 1948 Show” aired, the proof that Frost had been dreadfully wrong in doubting Feldman was only too apparent. The audience loved his zany style and if anything, Feldman was the break out star of “At Last: The 1948 Show”. Following the show, Feldman was given his own series by the BBC called “Marty/It’s Marty”. The show – which included famous sketches such as the cockney bishop on a train, the Bavarian wine-treading dance, and ‘The Loneliness of a Long Distance Golfer’ - was critically acclaimed and established him as a comedy force. In 1969, Feldman made his movie debut in Richard Lester's "The Bed Sitting Room", a film which starred Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Spike Milligan. The following year, he had his first leading film role in the sex and media comedy “Every Home Should Have One”. Feldman also co-wrote the screenplay for the movie. It seems he was always willing to learn when it came to acting, calling himself only an actor “of some sort” and referring to himself as a writer first and foremost.
“I won the award for being the best loser.”
His show, "It's Marty" would go on to win several accolades, including the BAFTA TV Award in 1969. It won in a few categories; for best writing, best light entertainment production, and best light entertainment performance. 1969 also saw Feldman as Variety Club’s “TV Personality of the Year”. "It's Marty" also went on to win the Writer's Guild Of Britain award that same year for best British light entertainment script. The show was also nominated for the Golden Rose at Montreux, but it failed to win. It did, however, take home the Silver and in 1972 Feldman's American show "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine", would win the Golden Rose for a "best of the comedy machine" compilation. While he seemed to be picking up awards left and right in Britain, both for writing and performing, Feldman remained modest, observing, "It's nice to know you're liked, but you can live without awards. They're only a matter of opinion, after all".
Feldman was first introduced to American viewers when he performed several sketches on “Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers In London”, a summer replacement series. He became an instant hit on this show, and as a newspaper of the time observed, “The reaction of American audiences to Feldman has been so good, even those who say they never watch TV have heard of him.” Capitalizing on this success, ABC then presented "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine" which, while inferior to his previous British series, served to expose him to viewers in the states, most importantly Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks. Upon seeing Feldman for the first time on that show, Wilder immediately thought he would be perfect for the upcoming film he and Brooks were creating, "Young Frankenstein". The actor "of some sort" was on his way to international stardom, as Wilder and Brooks cast Feldman to play the role of the hapless hunchback Igor in the film. This is the movie for which Feldman is best remembered and which served as his launch pad for stardom in America and Hollywood. Following “Young Frankenstein”, Feldman appeared in Gene Wilder’s “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother” and Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie”, which earned him a Golden Globe nomination in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. Riding high on such Hollywood successes, he was given the chance to direct in his own movie, “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”. The film received mixed reviews and Feldman himself remained dissatisfied with the final result, as after Universal’s re-cutting of the film, the version seen was, he commented, “Not the film I shot.” Unfortunately with his second directorial project, “In God We Tru$t”, a commentary on the hypocrisy of televangelism in America, circumstances improved little. While Feldman seemed more pleased with this project than with “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”, the film was harshly blasted by critics and its failure sent him into a bit of a depression.
“I’m too old to die young and too young to grow up.”
However, in 1982 Feldman agreed to take part in Graham Chapman’s pirate spoof “Yellowbeard” and was making a comeback professionally. The comedian was extremely happy to be working with old friends such as Chapman, John Cleese, and Eric Idle again. He had planned to go back to England and resume work there and the country was excited at this prospect. Sadly, he would never make it. Upon finishing his last day’s shoot on “Yellowbeard”, Feldman died of a heart attack at the age of 48. As director Mel Damski remembered, “We had about ninety-five percent of Marty’s scenes shot already” and, in true Marty Feldman fashion, he was reportedly worried about “how this would affect the film”.
While Feldman's death was untimely and there was certainly more work to be done, he packed an amazing amount of achievement into an all too short lifetime. With “Young Frankenstein” still being as popular and quotable as ever, it seems at least his name will echo on. However, when asked once what he would most like to be remembered for, Marty replied, "'The Loneliness of a Long Distance Golfer'. If I'm remembered for anything, I hope it's for that." Certainly this inventive sketch encapsulates what made Feldman such a unique talent - his comedy takes the viewer on a journey – sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally, often times both. Immediately, one is engaged and is wondering what is to happen next, and one never knows what to expect. The joy in his comedy comes from the sense of discovery, and in the end one is happy that the comic has invited us to go on the journey with him. Many have observed that the influence of this surreal style can be seen in modern British comedies such as "Little Britain", "The League Of Gentlemen", and "Nighty Night". His writing and views were certainly ahead of their time and his work remains as funny and irreverent today as it did in its era. A timeless talent, a unique spirit, a comedy genius.
--- Biography compiled by ANGELA P. COBB ---
--- Questions? Criticisms? Contributions? Comments? Please send to: [email protected]
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"The pen is mightier than the sword, and considerably easier to write with."
"Comedy, like sodomy, is an unnatural act. And after all, it’s not normal to parade yourself in front of other people and invite them to laugh at you…All the comics I’ve met felt themselves to be somehow social freaks, at odds with their environment because of their background or maybe the way they looked…"
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