Sid Caesar, Who Got Laughs Without Politics Or Putdowns, Dies At 91

Hide caption Actor and comedian Sid Caesar was well-known for Your Show of Shows and other comedic roles on television. Previous Next NBC via Getty Images

Hide caption Caesar, flanked by cast performers Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner, listens to a singer in a skit from the TV comedy series Your Show of Shows, in 1952. Previous Next NBC/Getty Images

Hide caption Caesar and some of his staff plan the comedy show Caesar's Hour in New York City in 1955. From left: Dave Caesar, Charles Andrews, Phil Sharp, Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Aaron Ruben, Mel Tolkin, Mike Ross, Sid and Sheldon Keller. Previous Next AP

Hide caption Nanette Fabray gags as railroad commuters Caesar, Carl Reiner (top) and Howard Morris (right) poke their smokes in her direction while looking over her shoulder to read her newspaper, on Caesar's Hour, in 1955. Previous Next AP

Hide caption Caesar relaxes while his wife, Florence, paints a portrait of him in their Kings Point, N.Y., home in 1958. Sid's new weekly program, Sid Caesar Invites You, premiered that year. Previous Next AP

Hide caption Caesar during rehearsal for the Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris Special, on Dec. 10, 1966. Previous Next CBS/Landov

Hide caption Comedian and writer Mel Brooks (left) sits with Caesar for the Sid Caesar Special in 1967. Previous Next CBS/Landov

Hide caption Caesar and Imogene Coca practice their soft shoe routine during a dress rehearsal in Boston in 1982 for the Boston Opera Company's production Orpheus. The pair had worked together since the 1950s on Your Show of Shows. Previous Next Marvin Lewiton/AP

Hide caption Caesar with Saturday Night Live writer Brad Hall (from left), Mary Gross, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy and Gary Kroeger on the set of Saturday Night Live in 1983 in New York. Previous Next David Bookstaver/AP

Hide caption Caesar portrays his classic "professor" in a guest appearance for Sesame Street's 15th anniversary season in 1985. Previous Next AP

Hide caption Legendary pair Caesar and Coca pose in a Boston hotel in 1992, near an old photograph of the two of them. They were announcing the Boston opening of their comedy show Together Again. Previous Next Sandy Hill/AP

Hide caption Actor Billy Crystal presents the Pioneer Award to Caesar onstage at the 2006 TV Land Awards, March 19, 2006, in Santa Monica, Calif. Previous Next Kevin Winter/Getty Images 1 of 12 i View slideshow

Comedian Sid Caesar, one of early network TV's biggest stars, died Wednesday morning at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 91.

Caesar didn't do smut, putdowns or smarmy remarks. Instead, he did skits: grown-up, gentle comedy for the whole family.

In one skit, Caesar was the smarter-than-anyone German "professor." Carl Reiner played a movie executive with money problems. The professor's solution? Make a musical — and get the greatest composer in the world. He is shocked to discover that his top choice won't be available.

"Beethoven, dead? Ludwig is gone. This is a shock. Look at that, you don't pick up a paper a couple of days, you don't know what's going on."

In another skit — again with Reiner as the sidekick — the professor was asked about the theory of flying. "What keeps the birds in the air?" he said. "Courage."

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Ruling A Room Full Of Comedy Stars

Caesar was 27 when he launched Your Show of Shows — TV's first and greatest live comedy. His writers became comedy royalty: Carl Reiner, Neil Simon and his brother Danny, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Mel Brooks.

"Everybody thinks that Sid waited to be pumped up with intelligence and with material from his writers," Brooks said. "They thought that he was just like — he'd sit there like a crazy empty balloon and that we would come in and we would pump him up and make, you know, we'd make a human being out of him. His tongue would stick out and he would talk and be funny, you know?

"But, believe it or not, Sid was one of the funniest guys, even away from the writers and the writing room."

Writer and performer Reiner said Caesar ruled the writer's room. Life — and laughs — depended on a nod from the boss.

"Sid was the flame," Reiner said. "Every writer was a moth who wanted to hang around that flame. There wasn't a writer in television who didn't want to be licking around that flame."

Every Saturday night, from 1950 to 1954 on NBC, Your Show of Shows brought skits, laughs, musical routines and dance numbers to American families. The comedy troupe included Imogene Coca and Howard Morris. And it was all live. Here's a story Caesar loved to tell, about answering audience questions about his work:

"And the first guy stood up and said, 'Mr. Caesar, we understand that the show is done live and it took an hour and a half. Now, could you tell us how long did it take to shoot the hour and a half?' I said, 'About 90 minutes.' "

His Most Difficult Role: Sid Caesar

The only person in the world he did not know how to play was Sid Caesar.

In 1954, Caesar's Hour was also live, and funny. The show started with a greeting from the host: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome."

Opening the show, Caesar looks stiff, uncomfortable. Larry Gelbart — who went on to create TV's M*A*S*H after writing for Caesar — said the comedian was painfully shy.

"The only thing we knew that Sid would not be sure of was being able to say good evening to the audience as Sid Caesar," Gelbart said. "Once he got into any sketch, any prepared material, once he could do a monologue, once he could do a mime, once he could play a character, he was fine. The only person in the world he did not know how to play was Sid Caesar."

By the age of 32, Caesar was a millionaire. By the time he was 35, Caesar's Hour had been canceled; he was off the air, and drinking too much. More TV followed, as well as various films and, later, two books — about his career and his struggles with liquor and barbiturates.

Caesar won those battles, but his glory days were over. Those hysterical, exhilarating NBC times were in the past, though they were still celebrated — in Neil Simon's comedy Laughter on the 23rd Floor and the film My Favorite Year.

Brooks says there were lots of reasons to celebrate Caesar.

"He could do everything," Brooks says. "[Charlie] Chaplin could not have done what Caesar did. Chaplin could not have done it. He could not have done 39 shows a year for five years and done seven or eight comedy sketches. No one in the world could have done that."

Naive, Good-Natured, Hilarious

Caesar sparked the laughter of my childhood. He taught me, and so many others, what really funny could mean: good-natured humor, with no putdowns, no politics, no sexual innuendo (the censors of the '50s wielded real power). Just innocent, brilliant humor.

"The way I look at things is in a naive way. I like to look at it in a naive way; to me it has more fun," Caesar said. "We have enough of reality in the news. I mean, you're inundated with news all day long from the newspaper, from the radio, from the television.

"Reality is overpowering, so you like to escape a little bit and naivete lets you escape. You don't have to have the reality hitting you all the time. That's what comedy is — to take you away into a little fantasy."

And throughout television's golden age, Sid Caesar's naive fantasies defined humor.