REDUCED -- Unholy Grail? Scarce first THEODORE - 10" 1955 LP Proscenium 21 MINT

$

49

"THEODORE"
Live 1955 Carnegie Hall performance
Midnight May 21, 1955      

First recording by this genius of the sinister      

Simultaneously Boris Karloff, Salvador Dalí, Nijinsky and Red Skelton    

Whether you never or ever heard of Theodore, this is interesting.          

          His Wikipedia listing begins ... "Brother Theodore (born Theodore Gottlieb; November 11, 1906 -- April 5, 2001) was a German-born American actor and comedian known for rambling, stream-of-consciousness monologues which he called "stand-up tragedy". He was a man described as "Boris Karloff, surrealist Salvador Dalí, Nijinsky and Red Skelton ... simultaneously."          

          Wiki goes on ... "Gottlieb was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Düsseldorf, in the Rhine Province, where his father was a magazine publisher. He attended the University of Cologne. At age 32, under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp until he signed over his family's fortune for one Reichsmark. After being deported for chess hustling from Switzerland, he went to Austria where Albert Einstein, a family friend and alleged lover of his mother, helped him escape to the United States ... He worked as a janitor at Stanford University, where he demonstrated his prowess at chess by beating 30 professors simultaneously, and later became a dockworker in San Francisco."          

          How much of that is true? But this is certainly true, and fully substantiated.          

          Theodore's career as a monologuist began in California in the late 1940s, with dramatic Poe recitals. He moved to New York City and by the 1950s, his monologues, now darkly humorous, had attracted a cult following. In 1958, he presented a one-man show that promoted the idea that human beings should walk on all fours. In the early 1960s, he frequently performed at the Café Bizarre in New York's Greenwich Village. He reached a wider audience through television, with 36 appearances on The Merv Griffin Show in the 1960s and '70s, and was also a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, and The Joey Bishop Show and a dozen more.          

          Insiders and fellow performers loved Brother Theadore and wouldn't let him stay retired. A documentary of his life story was produced by Jeff Sumerel and editor Jeter Rhodes.          

          "It was his interview with Henry Gibson that began to lead to other notable performers who were Theodore devotees. Gibson connected the filmmaker with Penn & Teller who were long-time, avid Theodorians. Over the next 5 years he did interviews with Dick Cavett, Eric Bogosian, Tom Schiller, Len Belzer, Joe Dante, Mark Shulman, and Woody Allen, among others.          

          "All of them gave no hesitation to participate, because of their admiration of and respect for Theodore. Sumerel spent the next 2 years gathering archival materials and working with editor Jeter Rhodes to sift through the vast amount of content conveying Theodore's personal and professional life.          

          In the end was produced a non-traditional documentary fitting for Theodore and titled "To My Great Chagrin: The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore." The film was selected for premiere February 13, 2008 at the opening night of The Museum of Modern Art's Fortnight Series.          

          Theodore died of pneumonia in 1991 at age 94. Fans wouldn't be surprised if he returned, younger.

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