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Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2014) was an American comic actor and writer, best known for the pioneering 1950s live television series ''Your Show of Shows'', a 90-minute weekly show watched by 60 million people, and its successor ''Caesar's Hour'', both of which influenced later generations of comedians.〔, ''CBS This Morning'', Feb. 13, 2014〕 He also acted in movies; he played Coach Calhoun in ''Grease'' (1978) and its sequel ''Grease 2'' (1982), and appeared in the films ''It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World'' (1963), ''Silent Movie'' (1976), ''History of the World, Part I'' (1981), and ''Cannonball Run II'' (1984). Caesar was considered a "sketch comic" and actor, as opposed to a stand-up comedian. He also relied more on body language, accents, and facial contortions than simply dialogue. Unlike the slapstick comedy, which was standard on TV, his style was considered "avant garde" in the 1950s. He conjured up ideas and scenes, and used writers to flesh out the concept and create the dialogue. Among the writers who wrote for Caesar early in their careers were Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Michael Stewart, Mel Tolkin and Woody Allen. "Sid's was the show to which all comedy writers aspired. It was the place to be," said Steve Allen. His TV shows' subjects included satires of real life events and people—and parodies of popular film genres, theater, television shows, and opera. But unlike other comedy shows at the time, the dialogue was considered sharper, funnier and more adult-oriented. He was "...best known as one of the most intelligent and provocative innovators of television comedy," who some critics called ''television's Charlie Chaplin'', and ''The New York Times'' refers to as the "...comedian of comedians from TV's early days."〔 Honored in numerous ways over 60 years, he was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards, winning twice. He was also a saxophonist and author of several books, including two autobiographies in which he described his career and later struggle to overcome years of alcoholism and addiction to barbiturates. ==Early life== Caesar was the youngest of three sons born to Jewish immigrants living in Yonkers, New York. His father was Max Ziser and his mother was Ida (née Raphael). They likely were from Dąbrowa Tarnowska, Poland.〔cite web|url=http://jgsgw.org/SidCaeserArticle.pdf〕 Reports state that the surname "Caesar" was given to Max, as a child, by an immigration official at Ellis Island.〔U.S. Census 1920, Yonkers, NY, enumerator's district 205, page 15A, and U.S. Census 1930, Yonkers, NY, enumerator's district 60-3, p. 6A〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sid Caesar Biography (1922–) )〕 This is an urban myth. According to Marian L. Smith, senior historian of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, there is no known case of a name changed at Ellis Island.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=American Names: Declaring Independence )〕 Max and Ida Caesar ran a restaurant, a 24-hour luncheonette. By waiting on tables, their son learned to mimic the patois, rhythm and accents of the diverse clientele, a technique he termed ''double-talk'', which he used throughout his career. He first tried double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat his native-sounding patter in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians, and Bulgarians. Sid Caesar's older brother, David, was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from movies of the day like ''Test Pilot'' and the 1927 silent film ''Wings''. At 14, Caesar went to the Catskill Mountains as a saxophonist in the Swingtime Six band with Mike Cifichello and Andrew Galos and occasionally performed in sketches in the Borscht Belt.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sid Caesar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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