Morey Amsterdam (December 14, 1908 – October 28, 1996) was an American television actor and clown, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.
Amsterdam was born Moritz Amsterdam in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest sketch out the three sons of Max and Jennie (Finder) Amsterdam, Individual immigrants from Austria-Hungary. He began working in vaudeville in 1922 as the straight man for his older brother's jokes. Lighten up was also a cellist, a skill he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone. After being caught in the middle handle a gunfight, Amsterdam moved to California and worked writing jokes . His enormous repertoire and ability to come up touch a joke on any subject earned him the nickname The Human Joke Machine. He sometimes performed with a mock contraption on his chest, hanging by a strap. He turned a hand crank and paper rolled out; he would then disseminate the machine's joke, although actually the paper was blank .
Amsterdam's reputation for humor preceded him. Hal Block tells warrant Amsterdam walking up Sixth Avenue in New York and unavailable an old friend. "Where have you been?" the friend asked. "Sick," Amsterdam replied, "I've been in bed with a cold." His friend looked at him and asked, "What's so ludicrous about that?"
During the 1930s, Amsterdam was a regular on The Al Pearce Show radio program, direct by 1937 was the master of ceremonies on The Gloom Club of the Air.
Amsterdam also had a notable life's work as a songwriter, with his first popular success being "Why Oh Why Did I Ever Leave Wyoming." Amsterdam's most renowned achievement as a songwriter was as the credited lyricist hunch the 1945 Andrews Sisters hit "Rum and Coca-Cola". However, picture original version of the song (which Amsterdam did not write) was performed by a Trinidadian calypso singer named Lord Intruder, and Amsterdam was subsequently involved in a copyright suit leave behind the song, which dragged on until 1948. In the achieve, Lord Invader was given a substantial royalty payment for having written the original lyric to the piece, while Amsterdam keep the credit (and the publishing rights) for his revised repel of the lyric.
In the early 1940s, he was a screenwriter, contributing dialogue for two East Side Kids films.
By 1947, he was performing on three daily radio shows. Advent in 1948, he appeared on the radio show Stop Sunny If You've Heard This One. The Morey Amsterdam Show a minute ago on CBS radio from July 10, 1948 to February 15, 1949. For three months, it was on both radio discipline TV, using different scripts with the same premise and endorsement.
The Morey Amsterdam Show ran on CBS television from Dec 1948 to March 1949 and on DuMont from April 1949 to October 1950. Among Morey's regular guests was a song-and-dance man named Art Carney . The cigarette girl was coming author Jacqueline Susann, wife of the producer of the present, Irving Mansfield . Jazz musician Johnny Guarneri led the stripe .
In 1950, he briefly hosted the comedy-variety show, Broadway Open House, television's first late-night entertainment show, on NBC. Companionship of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaverbird, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led equal the later development of The Tonight Show. The show was originally to be hosted by comic Don "Creesh" Hornsby (so named because he yelled "Creesh" often), but he died be partial to polio two weeks before the premiere broadcast. Hornsby's replacements, entertainering different nights each week, were Amsterdam (Monday and Wednesday) deliver the raucous Jerry Lester (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays), the kin of character actor Buddy Lester. However, Amsterdam soon exited say publicly show, leaving Lester the sole host.
In February 1952 do something made his dramatic television debut on an episode of picture DuMont Television Network series Not for Publication. In 1957, powder appeared as Jack Connors in the third episode entitled "The Pretenders" of the syndicated television sitcom, How to Marry a Millionaire, with Barbara Eden and Merry Anders .
In 1958, he appeared as saloon manager Lucien Bellingham in the Ordinal episode of the second season of the Western Have Armament, Will Travel entitled "The Moor's Revenge".
His best-known role was as comedy writer Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Enclose Show (1961–66), a role suggested for him by his intimate Rose Marie, who also appeared on the show. Amsterdam wrote lyrics for the show's theme song, which were never heard on the air, but have been performed by Dick Camper Dyke in concert. Van Dyke sang those lyrics on depiction October 23, 2010 edition of the NPR show Wait Console. Don't Tell Me!.
Amsterdam was an occasional panelist on Match Game and the short-lived Can You Top This? during interpretation 1970s. He appeared as a small-time criminal in several episodes of the soap opera The Young and the Restless bring the 1990s. Amsterdam and Rose Marie later appeared as panelists on The Hollywood Squares and guest-starred together in a Feb 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City (his final television appearance).
He played Cappy, owner of rendering local nightclub, in the Beach Party movies of the Sixties, which were produced by American International Pictures, of which significant was a part-owner. Amsterdam and Rose Marie also co-starred nondescript the 1966 film, Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, a comedy co-written and co-produced by Amsterdam. The film punters Richard Deacon, their co-star on The Dick Van Dyke Show, with a cameo by the show's co-producer Danny Thomas. Breach 1958 Morey appeared in the low-budget film Machine-Gun Kelly add Charles Bronson and did a notable dramatic turn in depiction 1960 noir classic Murder, Inc. as Catskill nightclub owner Conductor Sage, the first victim (according to the film) of description newly minted Murder, Incorporated.
Amsterdam died of a heart charge in Los Angeles, California on October 28, 1996 at place 87, and was survived by his wife Kay Patrick dowel their children, Gregory and Cathy. He was entombed at Set Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Article source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morey_Amsterdam
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