façade: Dick Shawn

...plus a much-needed word about Ernie Kovacs

The late comic Dick Shawn popped up in my mind recently when I found myself reading an old Dave Kehr DVD critique of Blake Edwards' sadly neglected 1966 wartime comedy, "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?"

Dave jogged my memory with his generous mention of Shawn's performance in the film: "... the picture really belongs to the innovative stand-up comedian Dick Shawn, here in his most significant movie role."

Yes, his most significant movie role - unfortunately. For us.

Born Richard Schulefand in 1923, Shawn died of a heart attack in 1987 at age 65 and he was yet another example of a talent  misunderstood and misused by Hollywood, wasted in small roles in films that starred other people - supporting (and hilariously, I hasten to add) Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in "The Producers" (1967) and Natalie Wood in "Penelope" (1966).

He never quite made the leap to the kind of name-over-the-title parts that went to Jack Lemmon, whose roles Shawn could have handily played. ("Some Like It Hot"? "Mister Roberts"?) Both he and Tony Randall pretty much lived in Lemmon's shadow, perhaps getting Jack's castoffs. They were all the same and yet each man was different

In the scheme of things, Jack was the normal everyman, Tony was the urbane neurotic and Dick was very definitely the sexy cool cat.

This was evident in Stanley Kramer's ensemble comedy, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." where, stripped down to a vintage red squarecut bathing suit, Shawn did a wild twist with that eternal dish, Barrie Chase.

Shawn was a leading man trapped in a comic's career.

After years doing stand-up in clubs and on television, Shawn made his movie debut in 1960 - "and introducing Dick Shawn" - for director Mervyn LeRoy in Twentieth Century-Fox's pleasing "Wake Me When It's Over," based on Howard Singer's 1959 novel about military bureaucracy and the teasing, newly-found sexual freedom being tested at the time.

The great cast, which LeRoy reportedly selected to closely match the characters in Singer's book, includes Ernie Kovacs (and more about him later), Jack Warden, Don Knotts, Marvin Kaplan, Raymond Baily, Nobu McCarthy and Margo Moore.

Shawn's next film came three year's later -  Kramer's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" - followed by Michael Gordon's 1965 "A Very Special Favor," with Rock Hudson and Leslie Caron, Edwards' "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" and two more 1966 films, Arthur Hiller's "Penelope" and Gordon Douglas's Jerry Lewis film, "Way ... Way Out." He gave a rare dramatic turn in Richard Brooks' "The Happy Ending" in 1969 and, of course, there was Mel Brooks' "The Producers," but the remainder of his filmography is negligible. His movie career should have been better.

Minor film roles and a lot of forgettable TV monopolized the rest of his career. Shawn's last film, released in 1988 after his death, was "Rented Lips" for Robert Downey, Sr. in which he co-starred with Martin Mull, Jennifer Tilly and Robert Downey, Jr.

In 1964, Shawn interrupted his then-young movie career to do the stage comedy, "Peterpat," written by Enid Rudd, co-starring the also much-missed Joan Hackett and directed by Joe Layton. It's what Broadway types call "a two-hander." Dick Shawn and Joan Hackett? Together. On stage. Sure, "Peterpat" flopped and closed after 21 performances, but it sounds like absolute heaven to me.

If only they had made a film together, something that would have lived on.

Or did they?

Notes in Passing: Getting back to Ernie Kovacs, this late, great comic actor is also long overdue for a rediscovery. Sure his TV standup routines have been showcased on DVD but how about a boxed set of the films he made for Columbia? That would include Sir Carol Reed's "Our Man in Havana" (1959), Irving Brecher's "Sail a Crooked Ship" (1961), with Robert Wagner and Delores Hart, and three titles that he made with Richard Quine, "Operation Madball" (1957), "Bell, Book and Candle" (1958) and "It Happened to Jane" (1959). And his fourth film for Quine and Columbia - 1960's "Strangers When We Meet"- has undergone a well-deserved rediscovery and re-evaluation in recent years.

"Peterpat" opened at the Longacre Theater on January 6th, 1965 and closed on January 23rd. It played nine previews (starting on December 29th, 1964), before its opening, and as noted, 21 regular performances.

Shawn also did a "two-hander" - with Anne Bancroft - for ABC Stage67. It was an original TV play titled "I'm Getting Married," written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and directed by Gerald Freedman.

It aired - live - on March 16th, 1967.

Finally, by all means, check out the aforementioned review of Edwards'  "What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?" that Dave Kehr wrote for The New York Times way back on June 3rd, 2008.

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~images~

(from top)

~Dick Shawn with David Hartman in a scene from the "Glass Cage" episode of "The Bold Ones"
~photography: Universal Television/NBC 1971©

~Shawn and Barrie Chase in a scene from "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" 
~photography: United Artists 1963©

~Poster art for Twentieth Century-Fox's "Wake Me When It's Over"

~Shawn with Natalie Wood in "Penelope"

~photography: MGM 1966©

~Playbill for "Peterpat"

~Ernie Kovacs, circa 1960