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Comedian Nipsey Russell dies at 80
Rhyming one-liners made game show panelist, talk show host popular with audiences.
Nipsey Russell, the comedian whose one-liners and impromptu rhymes made him one of television's popular talk-show guests and game-show panelists during the 1970s, died on Sunday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 80 and made his home in Manhattan. The cause was cancer, said his manager, Joe Rapp.
One of the early black standup comedians who found success with mainstream audiences, Russell started performing professionally in 1931 at the age of 6, when he was featured as a singing, dancing master of ceremonies for a children's troupe in Atlanta organized by Eddie Heywood Sr., the father of the jazz pianist. By the 1950s, he had become a seasoned comedian who set his act apart from the baggy-pants, mostly raunchy comics who were the staple of most black clubs of the time.
Dressed in a conservative business suit and tie but wearing a raffish porkpie hat, he offered a confident, sophisticated approach to comedy. His jokes and topical observations were often delivered in the form of aphorisms and rhymes. He had begun reading Shelley, Homer, Keats and Paul Laurence Dunbar when he was 10 and sometimes quoted from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Hip, glib and conspicuously intelligent, he attracted downtown crowds to Harlem, becoming a standout attraction at the Baby Grand, Small's Paradise and other cabarets with quips like "America is the only place in the world where you can work in an Arab home in a Scandinavian neighborhood and find a Puerto Rican baby eating matzo balls with chopsticks."
Russell prided himself on the universality of his humor and insisted that he did not want to be labeled a black comic.
But, despite telling at least one reporter that there was less racial material in his act than on the nightly news, his satirical comments on civil rights issues during the 1960s suggested that his usual stage diffidence masked more intense concerns. One of his favorite stories concerned an African delegate to the United Nations who stopped at a restaurant in Maryland only to be told that blacks were not served there.
"But I'm the delegate from Ghana," the diplomat protested.
"Well, you ain't Ghana eat here," the waitress replied.
Speaking of nonviolent protest, he observed, "He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist."
Nipsey Russell was born in Atlanta on Oct. 13, 1924. ("My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.") He moved to Cincinnati and lived with an aunt during his senior year of high school so he would be eligible to attend the University of Cincinnati tuition-free. A four-year enlistment in the Army -- where he was commissioned as a captain in the field during World War II -- interrupted his studies at the university. But he returned and earned a degree in English in 1946.
After college, he pursued his stage career in earnest, working black circuit clubs in the Midwest and on the East Coast before graduating to the Apollo in Harlem and top Catskills resort hotels like the Concord. It was his tenure at the Baby Grand, a Manhattan cabaret, however, that led to guest spots on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show," and those national television appearances ignited his career in 1959. His catchy verse, aphorisms and gift of gab were perfectly suited for radio and television and soon he was making steady appearances on Arthur Godfrey's morning radio program and a variety of television shows.
He played a policeman in the popular situation comedy "Car 54, Where Are You?" in 1961 and became the first black performer to become a regular panelist on a weekly network game show when he joined ABC's "Missing Links" in 1964. A year later, he became a co-host of ABC's "Les Crane Show." During the 70s, he was a co-star in the ABC sitcom "Barefoot in the Park" and appeared regularly on "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Dean Martin Comedy World."
Russell was a frequent panelist on television game shows like "Hollywood Squares" and "The $50,000 Pyramid," where he always came prepared with topical verse.
A tireless performer, he appeared in Atlantic City and Las Vegas until the early 1990s and continued to make television appearances until last year.
Although Russell was best known for his television and nightclub work, probably his most admiring reviews derived from his role as the Tin Man in the 1978 film "The Wiz."
Rhyming one-liners made game show panelist, talk show host popular with audiences.
Nipsey Russell, the comedian whose one-liners and impromptu rhymes made him one of television's popular talk-show guests and game-show panelists during the 1970s, died on Sunday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He was 80 and made his home in Manhattan. The cause was cancer, said his manager, Joe Rapp.
One of the early black standup comedians who found success with mainstream audiences, Russell started performing professionally in 1931 at the age of 6, when he was featured as a singing, dancing master of ceremonies for a children's troupe in Atlanta organized by Eddie Heywood Sr., the father of the jazz pianist. By the 1950s, he had become a seasoned comedian who set his act apart from the baggy-pants, mostly raunchy comics who were the staple of most black clubs of the time.
Dressed in a conservative business suit and tie but wearing a raffish porkpie hat, he offered a confident, sophisticated approach to comedy. His jokes and topical observations were often delivered in the form of aphorisms and rhymes. He had begun reading Shelley, Homer, Keats and Paul Laurence Dunbar when he was 10 and sometimes quoted from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Hip, glib and conspicuously intelligent, he attracted downtown crowds to Harlem, becoming a standout attraction at the Baby Grand, Small's Paradise and other cabarets with quips like "America is the only place in the world where you can work in an Arab home in a Scandinavian neighborhood and find a Puerto Rican baby eating matzo balls with chopsticks."
Russell prided himself on the universality of his humor and insisted that he did not want to be labeled a black comic.
But, despite telling at least one reporter that there was less racial material in his act than on the nightly news, his satirical comments on civil rights issues during the 1960s suggested that his usual stage diffidence masked more intense concerns. One of his favorite stories concerned an African delegate to the United Nations who stopped at a restaurant in Maryland only to be told that blacks were not served there.
"But I'm the delegate from Ghana," the diplomat protested.
"Well, you ain't Ghana eat here," the waitress replied.
Speaking of nonviolent protest, he observed, "He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist."
Nipsey Russell was born in Atlanta on Oct. 13, 1924. ("My mother just liked the way the name Nipsey sounded.") He moved to Cincinnati and lived with an aunt during his senior year of high school so he would be eligible to attend the University of Cincinnati tuition-free. A four-year enlistment in the Army -- where he was commissioned as a captain in the field during World War II -- interrupted his studies at the university. But he returned and earned a degree in English in 1946.
After college, he pursued his stage career in earnest, working black circuit clubs in the Midwest and on the East Coast before graduating to the Apollo in Harlem and top Catskills resort hotels like the Concord. It was his tenure at the Baby Grand, a Manhattan cabaret, however, that led to guest spots on Jack Paar's "Tonight Show," and those national television appearances ignited his career in 1959. His catchy verse, aphorisms and gift of gab were perfectly suited for radio and television and soon he was making steady appearances on Arthur Godfrey's morning radio program and a variety of television shows.
He played a policeman in the popular situation comedy "Car 54, Where Are You?" in 1961 and became the first black performer to become a regular panelist on a weekly network game show when he joined ABC's "Missing Links" in 1964. A year later, he became a co-host of ABC's "Les Crane Show." During the 70s, he was a co-star in the ABC sitcom "Barefoot in the Park" and appeared regularly on "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Dean Martin Comedy World."
Russell was a frequent panelist on television game shows like "Hollywood Squares" and "The $50,000 Pyramid," where he always came prepared with topical verse.
A tireless performer, he appeared in Atlantic City and Las Vegas until the early 1990s and continued to make television appearances until last year.
Although Russell was best known for his television and nightclub work, probably his most admiring reviews derived from his role as the Tin Man in the 1978 film "The Wiz."
