The Tragic Clowns-An Analysis of the Short Lives of John Belushi, Lenny Bruce, and Chris Farley-
By Joe Guse
Copyright 2007, Aardvark Publishing
Foreword
When I moved to Chicago in 1997 I had only one goal, and that was to become a famous comedian like Chris Farley. Having drifted in and out of several colleges, I finally found that The Second City in Chicago was the place to study comedy, and with that in mind I packed my bags and moved to Chicago to study improvisational theatre. Walking into the Second City for the first time is an awe striking experience. Seeing the pictures on the wall of all the great comedians that have studied and performed there, you can’t help but feel there is a kind of magic there. I met Chris Farley a couple of days before his death, when he came into a bar I worked at and began ordering drinks for everyone in the place. I told him about my plans, and he was very encouraging and couldn’t have been more humble and friendly. Meeting him meant a great deal to me, and when he died just a few short days after that conversation I was heartbroken by the loss.
This experience also got me thinking a great deal about my own life. I had attempted to imitate Chris in every sense of the word, and seeing him die so young was a wake up call that would eventually send me on the road to becoming a clinical psychologist. Although I often miss those days as a comic and bartender in Chicago, Chris Farley’s death triggered something in me that I knew I needed to address. This work explores many of the issues comedians may suffer through including the need to constantly entertain people, and many of the conclusions drawn in this book are as much relevant to my own life as to the lives of these three great men. I hope by exploring some of the behavioral patterns comedians often experience, I can shed further light on why men such as this often engage in such self-destructive behavior
Introduction
The “guru” of the Second City was for many years a man named Del Close who would be a mentor to both Chris Farley and John Belushi, and under his guidance both men skyrocketed to stardom. I also had the privilege of studying under Close at the Improve Olympic in Chicago, and his influence on me, as well as the field of comedy was truly far-reaching. In the movie Wired which depicts John Belushi’s life, a notable scene occurs when Close screams at a young and impressionable John Belsuhi to “Attack the stage” and in that moment you can begin to see how Belushi began to focus his manic energy. Farley also credited Close’s advice to “attack the stage” as the best advice he had ever gotten as an actor, and it comes as no surprise to many that Farley also idolized and wanted to emulate Belushi.
If there was one man who was an indisputable link between these three great comedians it was absolutely Del Close. Close was a friend of Lenny Bruce, and greatly admired his all-out rejection of traditional American values and mores. Like Lenny Bruce, Close embraced the world of drugs and found they contributed to his art and creativity. Close saw Lenny Bruce as a kind of prophet of the beat generation, and he encouraged John Belushi to take drugs, and even did them with him on several occasions when he was Belushi’s director. Many years after Belushi’s death, Close took a young Chris Farley under his wing, and one wonders how much Close’s lifelong embrace of drugs and counterculture influenced a young and impressionable Chris Farley, as this man was the guru to his idol John Belushi. Certainly his advice to both Belushi and Farley to “attack the stage” and “cut the demons loose” made a lasting impression, and under his tutelage both of these men found a new level of comedic energy.
So where did this passion to “attack the stage” ultimately come from? Farley and Belushi’s manic energy are both interesting to consider in light of Alfred Adler’s (1937) comment that “The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.” Perhaps their mania was a way of dealing with this intense emotional agitation, and this is a concept that will be examined throughout this work.
The inclusion of Lenny Bruce in this work may seem odd to some, but after reading this book I hope you see some commonalities in the lives of all three men that validates the choice to include Lenny Bruce in the conversation with these other more recent comedians. There is in fact many indisputable links in the lives of these three men, with perhaps the most obvious being they all died of drug overdoses as a result of lives of extreme excess. Beyond this link this work will attempt to show how each man’s need to use drugs to such excess had reasons that went well beyond their hedonistic urges.
This book will explore the intense loneliness each of these men felt throughout their lives, and how this loneliness contributed to a maladaptive lifestyle. In exploring this loneliness this work will examine patterns of thinking that develop in childhood that contribute to feelings of loneliness, and examine these patterns in each of these three men. The book will also examine how these men escaped this loneliness by engaging in drugs, and why three such talented and popular men often seemed so terribly alone.
The most noticeable similarity between these three men is that they were all very funny, and all felt an almost constant need to entertain people. Many comedians feel and act as if they are in fact always on stage, and begin to define their worth based on the response they get from their respective crowds. This is often because comedians have learned through many childhood experiences that the best way for them to find belonging in the crowd is in essence to become the clown. The need for belonging is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and once this belonging is found, it is not easily relinquished. The early lives of many comedians often reveal a great deal of pain, and humor is often the way this pain is crystallized and made sense of, which is usually a healthy adaptation.
The use of humor can become unhealthy when it hurts others, or alternatively it is turned excessively against the self. In the case of all three of these men, their humor had at least some relationship to their own self-loathing. While Farley is the most noticeable example of this, it also appears often in looking at the work of Belushi and Bruce. In Farley’s case, playing the “Fat Clown” was a role he couldn’t escape, and ultimately dramatically influenced his ability to get close to other human beings. In Lenny Bruce’s case the idea proffered by Alfred Adler (1937) that “It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them” was especially relevant. Bruce attacked liars and hypocrites on the stage, although he was often pathologically dishonest himself. Although he has achieved iconic status for his work on the stage, it is also interesting to consider his work as a sublimation of his own feelings of hatred towards himself. This is another theme this book will explore.
Another obvious commonality between these three men concerns their excessive drug use and eventual early deaths by drug overdose. This book will explore this drug use and examine how this use was related in part to needing to remain “on” and provide constant entertainment to the audiences in their lives. Beyond this, their use of drugs as an escape from loneliness and boredom will be examined. Although they all certainly became addicted to drugs at various points in their careers, this work will attempt to examine their drug abuse as something that went far beyond physical addiction.
One thing that often accompanies an addiction to drugs is a downward social drift, where people may start to spend time with people they would normally not associate with because of their access to drugs. Each of these three men certainly experienced this downward social drift, and in Belushi and Farley’s case their last words were both to women who they barely knew, and whose only association to these men was a common interest in doing drugs. In Farley and Belushi’s case their last words “Don’t leave” said to a heroin addict and a stripper respectively were especially sad, and explain a great deal about these highly entertaining men who also both felt intensely alone.
Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce was an iconoclast like no other. He consistently challenged the norms and sacred cows of his generation, and in doing so made much of America seriously question the hypocrisy of things they once held to be beyond question. Bruce was in fact so controversial that he was arrested several times after his performances, and these arrests seriously impacted his ability to perform and spread his message. With the assistance of Hugh Hefner, Bruce published his book How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, (1971) where he discussed his legal problems, and continued to defy American conventions and challenge views of what society deemed as moral. His courage to confront and attack traditional mores greatly influenced current comedians such as Bill Maher, George Carlin, and Jon Stewart, whose comedy often confronts the hypocrisy in our political system to such an extent as to actually influence political elections.
The man the world came to know as Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider (Goldman 1971) October 13, 1925 in Long Island, New York to Mickey and Sally Schneider. Mickey was an average man with average ambitions, but Sally was another story entirely. Having won a beauty contest at the age of 12, she developed an urge to perform that would stay with her for the rest of her life. When Lenny was 8, Sally became bored with her Long Island existence and went to Reno to get a divorce from Mickey. Following this divorce Lenny was shuffled between parents during his early years, staying mostly with his father who was the more responsible of the two. When Lenny did see his mother it was usually part of some whirlwind affair, and Lenny began to see Sally as his friend and playmate as opposed to a mother figure. Lenny officially left Long Island at the age of 17 to join the Navy, and during this experience he began to emulate his mother’s performances and came to be regarded as the unofficial “entertainer” of his battalion of men.
During this same time period, Sally was beginning her career as a comedienne and had begun working the clubs in New York City under the stage name Sally Marr while making a new best friend named Sally Barton who was also an entertainer. During his time in the Navy, Lenny reconnected with his mother, and with his mother’s approval began a sexual affair with Sandy Barton, who Lenny would later describe as his first true love. The three of them spent a great deal of time together during this time period with Sally playing the role of jokester and friend to Lenny during this period of early adulthood. Lenny wanted so badly to get out of the Navy at this time that he begun to impersonate a homosexual, even going so far as to tell the ship’s doctors that he was obsessed with homosexual thoughts, who then recommended he be dishonorably discharged which finally occurred in October of 1945.
Following his release from the Navy, Lenny reestablished contact with Sandy and Sally. Two important things happened during this time period, one being that Lenny proposed to Sandy, and the second being that Lenny decided to be an entertainer. Lenny’s mother Sally strongly objected to Lenny marrying Sandy, and this was the beginning of the end for this relationship. During this same period Mickey Schneider returned home from World War 2 and upon his return moved to Los Angeles and built two homes, one for himself and one for Lenny who he now wanted to start a father-son business with. Lenny rejected this idea and began studying acting in Los Angeles. Lenny had very little success in Los Angeles and moved back to New York to be close to his mother and pursue his entertainment career closer to home. During this period Lenny met and eventually married Honey Harlowe in 1951 and they had a daughter Kitty, four years later in 1955.
Lenny did not stand out during his early career as an entertainer (Bruce, 1965) as his routines which were based heavily on his mother’s influence were old-fashioned and out of date. This changed when he met Joe Ancis (Thomas 1989) who was known as a very “sick” comic who despite his influence on other comics never performed professionally throughout his career. The shocking, grotesque, taboo-busting material Joe would talk about was highly entertaining to Lenny, and he slowly began to emulate Joe and work some of this material into his own routine. Lenny was in fact braver than Joe in some sense, as Joe was afraid to fail in public whereas Lenny could stand the rejection and keep getting back up on stage. Lenny began getting bolder and bolder on stage and at one point walked on stage naked while working in a burlesque club to emphasize the point that nudity was nudity. During this time he also became friendly with a number of Jazz musicians who first introduced Lenny to the world of drugs, which he would become addicted to and which would lead to his eventual death. His wife Honey Harlowe also became addicted to drugs, and Lenny soon filed for divorce from Honey based on her addiction and her lack of care for their daughter Kitty.
Following Lenny’s split from Honey, he concentrated all of his energies into his performances, and this focus helped launch the most creative period of his career. His big break came when a club owner tried to book his mother for an appearance, who informed the club owner that it was in fact her son who deserved this golden opportunity. Lenny’s subsequent performances, where he ranted against organized religion, government, and sexual politics was soon noticed by major journalists who began writing about this new ground-breaking comic who dared to talk about things previously untouched by other comics. Lenny was in fact so controversial and shocking that he was eventually arrested on obscenity charges, and due to the following legal controversy he had a great deal of trouble finding jobs during the later part of his career. During this period of his life he continued to abuse drugs, and the last years of his life were a downward spiral of drug addiction and legal battles ending with his death at the age of 40 from a heroin overdose that evidence suggests may have been intentional. Although Lenny’s death attracted some media coverage and mild interest, the full legacy of his impact and influence would not be felt for many years. His refusal to compromise and conform to traditional standards cost him everything, and many consider him to be an absolute martyr for the cause of free speech in America, whose influence helped breed generations of new iconoclasts willing to question and confront mainstream American values.
Analysis
Gender Role Preparation perceived through Gender Guiding Lines and Role Models
Growing up during the depression was difficult for the Schneider family, and Lenny’s father was quick to point out to Lenny the value of a dollar. His father constantly reminded Lenny that he himself would go without so his son could have things, and Lenny therefore began to assimilate the idea that a man puts his family’s needs before his own. His parents divorce also has a great deal of influence on him, and his father’s sense of responsibility and his mother’s subsequent foray into the world of entertainment seemed to lead him to believe that men were meant to follow and enforce rules, whereas women are the source of fun and pleasure in life. Lenny eventually came to despise his father, and his desire to defy the rules in his life may have been a direct rebellion against his perception of his father’s overly authoritarian ways.
It’s hard to fully grasp the nature of his mother’s influence on Lenny. His idea that “women provide the fun” in life, was reinforced all throughout his life, as his mother was always entertaining him and bringing him gifts, even when he rarely saw her. Conversely his father became for him the source of all that was unhappy and not fun in life, and, after sensing Lenny’s disapproval with him, his father began to badly spoil Lenny. The more Lenny’s father tried to win his approval, the more Lenny rejected him, and he eventually separated almost completely from his father, rejecting his “benevolent authoritarianism” in favor of his permissive and entertaining mother.
There was also some evidence (Goldman 1971) that this rejection of the masculine guiding line influenced and confused Lenny’s perception of sexuality. This sexual confusion may have manifested itself when Lenny masqueraded as a homosexual to receive his discharge from the Navy. A psychologist who contributed to Goldman’s (1971) book on Bruce posited the idea that this may very well have been an experimentation of his homosexual urges, and this seems possible given Lenny’s early rejection of his father’s guiding principles.
Interpersonal Style perceived through Experience of Family Atmosphere
Lenny’s early family atmosphere consisted of very little harmony between his father’s respect for rules and conformity and his mother’s need for constant amusement and entertainment. In this capacity Lenny’s mother was also very dishonest with his father, and her dishonesty and her husband’s subsequent mistrust both influenced the young Leonard Schneider. She describes herself as a “prisoner” when she was stuck at home, and she would often go out and perform at amateur nights despite the protests of her disapproving husband. All of this led to a kind of “stormy” family atmosphere that young Lenny interpreted as the fault of his father. Interestingly in an interview with Mickey Schneider, he explains to journalist Albert Goldman (1971) that Lenny had “an abundance of love” growing up, and Mr. Schneider strongly contested Lenny’s later claims that he was an ogre and a tyrant obsessed with the rules when he was young.
Lenny models this early pattern of storm and strife throughout his life and all his interpersonal relationships essentially mimic this early parental pattern of intensity and then disconnection. This is even true of Lenny’s relationship with his audience, where he essentially began to sabotage his own performances late in his career, and may have been rejecting his audiences before they had a chance to reject him.
Personal Code of Conduct perceived through Acceptance / Rejection of Family Values
In researching Lenny Bruce’s early life, it seemed that there was very little about anything that his parents agreed upon, and it is even suggested that they would never have even been married except for the fact that Sally lied about being pregnant. Goldman (1971) suggests Sally did this because she desired a strong motherly relationship with Mickey’s mother, whom she was very close to. Sally’s own mother was committed to a mental institution when Sally turned 18 and this event left a void in Sally’s life that she temporarily filled by marrying Mickey. Mickey, who was also close to his own mother who was indisputably in charge of her own household, also stressed to Lenny the importance of the maternal relationship, and therefore an important family value was taught to Lenny, that the mother was a figure who should be respected and revered. This matriarchal society had in fact been a theme in Lenny’s heritage for a couple of generations, and undoubtedly influenced the kind of blinding loyalty and admiration he felt for his mother.
Interestingly, Lenny rejected this family value in his own dealings with his wife and daughter, and instead chose to mimic his father’s actions regarding his own daughter. When Lenny divorced Honey because he thought she was an unfit mother, he made the decision that he would be the one who would care for their daughter. This choice was in many ways similar to the one his father made, and reflected his father’s thinking that men were the ones who took responsibility in times of crisis. This new dynamic seemed to start with Lenny’s father following his divorce and this decision to care for his daughter seemed to be the one firm choice in his life that was influenced by his father’s family values.