SHELLEY BERMAN

2 Sept

(3 February 1925 - 1 September 2017)

The American stand-up comedian Shelley Berman, who has died aged 92 from complications with Alzeimer’s disease, trained as an actor but became a dance instructor and speech teacher among other jobs, before making his name as a comedian. He was famous for his funny confessional monologues on his view of life and its problems. He toured with the likes of Mike Nichols and Elaine May and later worked solo in night clubs, on television and also recording his routines for albums. He won the first Grammy for a non-musical disc. On television (from 1954) he acted in Peter Gunn, The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Burke’s Law, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart and Curb Your Enthusiasm etc and appeared as himself in his own shows and with Dinah Shore, Jack Paar, Perry Como, Merv Griffin, Judy Garland, Andy Williams Dean Martin and Ed Sullivan, among many others. For the cinema Berman was in The Best Man, Divorce American Style, Every Home Should Have One, Son of Blob (directed by Larry Hagman), Rented Lips, and also Teen Witch, The Last Producer, Elliot Fauman, Ph.D., Motorama, Meet the Fockers, The Holiday and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. He played himself in the documentary feature The Aristocrats, alongside many other gagsters telling the dirtiest joke ever. Shelley Berman was married to Sarah Herman for seventy years and they had two children.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

SHELLEY BERMAN

PETER HALL

ALAN MACDONALD