Daily News from New York, New York • 292

i 5 THE SCENE iff- i i. i tv 73 The Comediamis Who Inlave fro Be imriy CO Rex Reed is on vacation 1 0 in For stand-up comics such as Rodney Danger-field (left) and Robert Klein (above), the work is hard and no matter what the money turns out to be the real payoff is in laughs, real laughs from real people. By BRYANT MASON ONSTAGE LIVE, he's rough, rude and sometimes even crude. But Rodney Dangerfield, at 54, is New York's longest-running stand-up comic, already into his sixth year at his club on First Ave. In this town, that's quite an accomplishment.

Live comedy has all but disappeared. Except for clubs like the Improvisation and Catch a Rising Star in Manhattan and Pips in Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay section, there are darn few places where one can see a praetioner of the art. "I guess comedy is a difficult commodity said Dangerfield, wrapped in an orange terry-cloth robe and sitting in a basement dressing room following1 one of his nightly packed shows at his club, 1118 First Ave. "There are fewer comedians today; maybe he-cause they don't have the breeding grounds of years ago," reflected the man who's known as "Mr. I Don't Get No Respect" to just about all of America.

Of course the "real buffaloes" like Don Rickles and Shecky Greene, as Dangerfield likes to refer to -them, are still around. They are still the Renoirs and Rubenses to the stand-up comic art. Their bookings keep them busy the year round. But mostly they work-in Las Vegas. When they come to New York, they perform at benefits or they go onstage at the Nanuet Star Theater, Westchester Premier Theater or the Westbury Music Fair.

Those places permit none of the real intimacy of a living room setting. The comic is the faraway figure in the spotlight. Spectators on the fringe of a crowd of miss out on facial expressions, hand movements and the knowing glint in the comic's eye on the punch line. In the '40s and the '50s, it wasn't like that. When -Rodney, who was known then as Jack Roy, was coming along, there were plenty of places where guys the celebrated Lenny Bruce could stand up and work out their jokes, imitations or political satire.

The clubs had odd-sounding names like the Polish Falcon, the Victory Inn, Lennie and Eddie's, the Pink Elephant and the Jinx Club. Dancing girls and singers were the features with the comics walking on between acts. Close fo Home Some stand-up comics did get enough bookings In their own borough so that they didn't have to go on the road. They worked for $25 a night, sometimes as much as $250 a week, played the Catskills in the summer, the bar mitzvahs and the coffee houses in Greenwich Village where Woody Allen got his start. They might not have been happy with the book-' ings and the money, but they worked.

"There used to be 12 clubs on 52d gangs of clubs," said the gravelly voiced Dangerfield. "Times change. I was discussing this with my friend Joe Ancis. When we were growing up in New York, it was much more colorful an era. There were clubs all around, and today it's like zippo!" The laugh-making business has changed.

It's largely been due to TV. Television has absorbed the talents of Flip Wilson, Carol Burnett, Redd Foxx and Freddie Prinze, the new Puerto Rican comic. The vehicle Is the situation comedy. Names like Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca and Jackie Gleason are turning up on commercials. The TV shows can heavily eat into the comic's repertoire, explains Schultz.

The stand-up comic who can't write material fast soon finds that he has run out of stuff. "One thing about being a comedian," asserted Klein, "the audience will let you know whether you are funny or not. Comedy doesn't work on smiles or nods or yes, I recognize that. Comedy works on audible response: laughter." "I guess we all share a lot in common with Milton Berle and Fat Jack Leonard and other generations of comedians. We still go out in one," said Klein.

"It is peculiar and comparable only to bullfighting and a few other things. Through your own wile and guile, usually without props, you just do it." Thanks to Lenny Bruce and Jonathan Winters, there has been expansion. It's not just monology any more, like with Mort Sahl. One of the changes in the business which Klein feels has certainly not helped the art in the past few years has been the introduction of the 'laugh-making sweetener' for TV. The quality of material on the "Laugh In" show of a couple of years ago fell down, Klein said, because laughs were literally dubbed.

"The use of that machine," Klein states, "degenerated comedy material because the comics had no obligation to be funny. They could produce their own reponse whenever they couldn't get the audience to laugh in the right places." Going It Alone Stand-up comedy may well be on its way to respectability. Klein, who spent a year at the Yale Drama School, was summoned back earlier this year by the noted critic and director, Robert Brustein. "I was offerred a teaching fellowship as professor of stand-up," Klein said lightly. Brusiein was interested specifically in political satire.

Klein didn't take it, but he thinks that at some point in the future he just might. Not all comics are nearly as successful as Klein. Howard Mann, 48, an aspiring comic, when asked how many comics there might be in New York City, said: "It's like you are either very good or nowhere. You are either on TV or you are not working, except college concerts." Mann is a comedian who supports himself doing commercials. He's the familiar face on ads for Alka-Seltzer, Beechnut Gum, Confident and Chiffon margarine, to name a few.

Life is fairly comfortable, but his heart is out there in the world of the stand-up comic. To keep sharp, he works at Pips, the Improv or at Catch. "I've done a lot of commercials. I have done Broadway and I used to be an advertising writer, and before that a social worker." Why do people become comedians? Mann answered with this: "You become a comedian when things are very painful to you. You make jokes to get out of the pain.

I think the funniest comedians are the guys who have suffered a lot, and they make jokes to make themselves feel good. "There is an underlying tragedy in all comics," pointed out Mann. "The comic sees things two ways. Most of us see them one way." "To be a good comic," said Klein, "you have to be a bit of a performer, an exhibitionist, someone who likes to get laughs and hear laughs, who needs affir- nation, I i (-r says he wouldn't, advise anybody to go into the field. "It's an anxious business." telephone company books comedians like Henny Youngman, Alan King and Phyllis Diller on something called Dial-a-Joke.

Dangerfield, while lamenting the passing of a more colorful era, is the first to admit that TV is largely the reason for his continuing success. And even though he says people don't come to New York to go nightclubbing any more go to Las 907 to 95 of his business is out-of-towners. Robert Klein, 33, is a good example of a comic who has used his TV opportunities to his best advantage. He has appeared on most of the prestigious TV shows, such as Carson, Cavett and Griffin. He has starred in four movjes: "The "The Pursuit of "The Owl The Pussycat" and "Rivals." In 1970, he starred in "Comedy the summer replacement for Glen Campbell's TV show.

By doing TV he has profitted, much like Lucille Ball, who got an early start and built on it and built on it. But for others in the business, TV has passed them by. "There are many comics who had their heyday in the '50s, and they are nothing now," Klein pointed out. "That's the way it went for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. "Caesar was a product of his time, and at that point he was brilliant.

Now he's just a nervous guy. He's been in a few shows and he's very talented, but that was a special context, and it was a good six or seven-year thing. Neither Caesar or Coca is starving, but the fact is they have peaked," stated Klein. Standup comedy, while it looks easy, involves much more than just being a funny guy. Stop by Bud Freedman's Improvisation Club, 348 W.

44th weekdays or weekends. Comics pour in from all over. They get on stage for fiee just to work out material. Just as conductors need orchestras to practice, comics need an audience to really sharpen up their delivery. A comic's material must always be on the mark.

It Takes Practice What are they learning? Dangerfield answers the question simply: "They are learning how to walk on the stage. How to find a routine. They do the same joke over a 1,000 times until it works. A joke is a very complicated thing to word properly, to phrase, to time." Klein, who made $175,000 last year, flatly states that "comedy is serious business. There are an awful lot of things which are dreary and not funny which go into the preparation of this art." For the new breed of comics, of whom Klein, Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Richard Lewis and Larry Ragland, and Ed Bluestone are examples, the success or failure of a comic is largely determined by his ability to write material.

The gag writers who wrote for Jack Benny's radio shows, Bob Hope and other big-name comics in the '40s and '50s cost a lot of money. For a person who can write jokes, there is more money in writing situation "comedy, says George Schultz, owner of Pips in Sheepshead Bay. He's employed such artists as Jimmie (J.J.) Walk- -er, SandyBaron, Stanley Myron Handelman and Joan Rivers, The club opened in 1962. All of them could j'jimake it because they could write tlieir own- material, o-said Schultz, 4. v.

aurror five; six to seven-minute, appearances on I V.I The golden age of gag writing came a little early for new-breed comics such as Lily Tomlin who must more reliant on 4heir own resources than were VilbftlMgh'roWJr? preVTpus generation.".