Sahl, Mort,
1927-2021, American comedian and social commentator, b. Montreal, Canada, as
Morton Lyon Sahl, Univ. of Southern Calirofnia (B.A., 1950). Sahl was raised
in Los Angeles. After serving in the Army Air Force, he studied city
planning in college and then moved to Berkeley, Calif., where he began
performing at local clubs. He was among the first to base his act on social
commentary, critiquing rightwing figures like Senator Joseph McCarthy. He became popular among the
late-'50s counterculture intelligentsia, and was a regular on television,
record, and even on Broadway. Sahl often appeared holding the day's
newspaper, using it to riff on contemporary topics; he also introduced
contemporary language drawn from jazz and pop culture in his act, all of
which influenced the next generation of stand-up comedians. He parodied both
Democrats and Republicans, and over time his popularity faded as he became
increasingly focused on conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy
assassination. He returned to popularity during the Watergate era, and continued to perform
for decades later, including a one-man show on Broadway in 1987. In 2011,
The Library of Congress added his live album, At Sunset
(1955), to the National Recording Registry.
See his memoir, Heartland (1976); biography by J. Curtis
(2017); G. Nachman, Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the
1950s and 1960s (2003).
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