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Famous Like Me > Writer > F > Marty Feldman

Profile of Marty Feldman on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Marty Feldman  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 8th July 1933
   
Place of Birth: London, England, UK
   
Profession: Writer
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Actor Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein (1974)

Martin Alan Feldman (July 8, 1934 – December 2, 1982) was a writer, comedian and film and television actor in the UK, famous for his bulging eyes, which were the result of a thyroid condition.

He was born in London's East End section, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev. Leaving school at 15, Feldman started his show-business career as a trumpet player (like Spike Milligan) but soon turned to comedy. He formed a flourishing writing partnership with Barry Took in 1954. For British television they wrote situation comedies such as The Army Game, Bootsie and Snudge, and most notably the ground-breaking BBC radio show Round the Horne, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. Feldman was also a writer on The Frost Report with several future members of Monty Python.

The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show featured Feldman's first on-screen performances. In one memorable sketch, first broadcast on March 1, 1967, Feldman harassed a patient shop assistant (John Cleese) for a series of fictitious books, finally achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying. The sketch was revived as part of the Monty Python stage show repertoire, and on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (both without Feldman).

Marty Feldman was co-author, with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor, of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, which was written for their television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. The "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" was performed during Amnesty concert performances (by members of Monty Python - one time including Rowan Atkinson in place of a Monty Python member), as well as being performed during Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl and other Monty Python shows and record albums (and now on CDs). This has led to the inevitable result of the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" now being considered a Monty Python sketch, with the origin of the sketch, and the co-authorship of the sketch by non-Monty Python writers Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor, being unfortunately overlooked, or forgotten, by many people.

Following his success on At Last the 1948 Show, Feldman had a memorable series of his own shows on the BBC called "Marty" (1968), which also featured Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod. The second series (made in 1969) was renamed "It's Marty"
(with the second title being retained for the DVD release of the show).

Marty Feldman's performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show and Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine. He is best remembered for his role as the hunchback Igor (pronounced as eye-gor) in Young Frankenstein—in which, as usual, many of his lines were improvised.

He also released one long playing record called I Feel A Song Going Off (1969), re-released as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs were written, not by him, but by Dennis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies).1

Feldman was an active member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Feldman appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes's Smarter Brother and several Mel Brooks films, including Silent Movie and Young Frankenstein. He directed and starred in The Last Remake of Beau Geste and died from a heart attack in Mexico filming his last performance in the film Yellowbeard.

According to Mel Brooks on the DVD commentary of Young Frankenstein, Feldman suffered a heart attack because he was a heavy smoker (smoking half a carton of cigarettes a day), drank copious amounts of black coffee, and was a vegetarian (he ate eggs and dairy products to compensate for the lack of meat, though they clogged his arteries). Also, the high altitude in Mexico forced his overtaxed heart and lungs to work harder, making a heart attack almost inevitable.

Further Reading

Further information about Marty Feldman can be found in the book:

  • From Fringe to Flying Circus - 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960-1980' - Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980.

Reference

1Kettering Magazine Issue #2.

External link

  • Photos
  • Marty Feldman at the Internet Movie Database

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Marty Feldman