carl

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family. My parents Martin Konigsberg and Nettea Cherrie, and my sister, Letty, lived in Flatbush, Brooklyn, where i attended a Hebrew school for eight years. After that, i went to Public School 99 and then to Midwood High, where "Red" (as i was called because of my hair) impressed students with his extraordinary talent at cards and magic tricks. To raise money, i began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. My first published joke was "I am two with Nature." At sixteen, i started writing for show stars like Sid Caesar. i was a gifted comedian from an early stage.i will eventually joke that when i was young i was often sent to inter-faith summer camps, in which i "was savagely beaten by children of all races and creeds".After high school, i went to New York University where i studied communication and film but, never much of a student, i soon dropped out due to poor grades. i also briefly attended City College of New York after that. At nineteen, i married Harlene Rosen, a philosophy student, and started writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show and others. In 1957, i won his first Emmy Award; about the same time, he divorced Harlene.then i slept for a very long time, woke this morning. He started writing prose and plays, and in 1960, started a new career as a stand-up comedian and also began writing for the popular Candid Camera television show, even appearing in some episodes. Together with his managers he turned his weaknesses into his strengths and developed the neurotic, nervous, and shy figure famous from his later movies. He soon became an immensely popular comedian and appeared frequently in nightclubs and on television.