WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.379 Welcome to the Deep Dive. We have a really custom 00:00:04.379 --> 00:00:06.440 -tailored journey lined up for you today, and 00:00:06.440 --> 00:00:08.980 it is a fascinating one. It really is. Yeah. 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:10.820 For this Deep Dive, we're pulling from a single, 00:00:10.980 --> 00:00:14.099 just incredibly rich biographical article detailing 00:00:14.099 --> 00:00:16.839 the life of a man named Harry Einstein. Which 00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:19.399 I know might sound like we're about to explore 00:00:19.399 --> 00:00:22.579 the life of some dusty, early 20th century academic. 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:26.100 Right. But this document unfolds into something 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:31.660 completely unexpected. It's a story that it really 00:00:31.660 --> 00:00:34.579 bridges the gap between old vaudeville style 00:00:34.579 --> 00:00:37.619 radio and the modern comedy landscape that we 00:00:37.619 --> 00:00:39.369 consume today. That's the part that hooked me 00:00:39.369 --> 00:00:41.250 immediately, actually. Our mission today is to 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.929 explore the incredible, sometimes tragic, and 00:00:43.929 --> 00:00:47.090 highly influential life of a comedian who fundamentally 00:00:47.090 --> 00:00:49.750 shaped modern American entertainment. We're talking 00:00:49.750 --> 00:00:52.390 about a man who created a beloved national radio 00:00:52.390 --> 00:00:54.729 character, literally spawned a comedy dynasty, 00:00:54.890 --> 00:00:56.509 and experienced what has to be one of the most 00:00:56.509 --> 00:00:59.090 dramatic, surreal, and genuinely shocking onstage 00:00:59.090 --> 00:01:01.369 deaths in Hollywood history. It's a narrative 00:01:01.369 --> 00:01:04.180 that just has everything. I mean, it's a study 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:07.420 in ambition, the blurring of identity and how 00:01:07.420 --> 00:01:09.959 cultural influence gets passed down through generations. 00:01:09.980 --> 00:01:12.579 Right. Both in the work itself and in the actual 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:15.040 flesh and blood of the people creating it. Exactly. 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:17.620 And even if you sitting there right now listening 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:21.060 have never heard the name Harry Einstein. I can 00:01:21.060 --> 00:01:22.819 practically guarantee you have laughed at the 00:01:22.819 --> 00:01:26.459 work of his very famous sons. The DNA of American 00:01:26.459 --> 00:01:28.620 comedy runs straight through this man's life. 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:31.099 It really does. Okay, let's unpack this. How 00:01:31.099 --> 00:01:33.680 does someone become a foundational pillar of 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:36.319 American comedy? Where does this story actually 00:01:36.319 --> 00:01:38.700 begin? Well, it begins in Boston, Massachusetts. 00:01:39.849 --> 00:01:42.769 Harry Einstein was born there in the early 1900s, 00:01:42.769 --> 00:01:46.209 1904, to be exact. His mother came from a Russian 00:01:46.209 --> 00:01:48.430 Jewish family, and his father was an Austrian 00:01:48.430 --> 00:01:51.909 Jewish bondmaker who ran an importing business. 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:54.790 Harry attended the English high school in Boston, 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:57.049 but he didn't go straight into show business. 00:01:57.370 --> 00:01:59.689 No, he didn't. He actually started out as a newspaper 00:01:59.689 --> 00:02:01.969 reporter before transitioning into the advertising 00:02:01.969 --> 00:02:04.489 world. So he starts in a very practical, stable 00:02:04.489 --> 00:02:07.430 career. He gets a job doing advertising for Hearst 00:02:07.430 --> 00:02:10.909 newspapers in Boston. How does he get from selling 00:02:10.909 --> 00:02:14.219 ad space to performing? He was just incredibly 00:02:14.219 --> 00:02:17.159 adept at communication. And he parlayed that 00:02:17.159 --> 00:02:20.419 newspaper experience into advertising roles for 00:02:20.419 --> 00:02:23.539 local Boston furniture stores. Places like Taylor 00:02:23.539 --> 00:02:26.060 Furniture, Summerfields, and Kane's Furniture. 00:02:26.219 --> 00:02:28.939 And what's crucial here is the era. We're talking 00:02:28.939 --> 00:02:31.379 about the 1920s. Commercial radios just started 00:02:31.379 --> 00:02:33.560 to boom. Businesses are trying to figure out 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:36.300 how to use this new medium. And Harry is tasked 00:02:36.300 --> 00:02:38.900 with managing the radio departments for these 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:41.120 furniture stores. That makes perfect sense. He's 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:42.860 placed right at the intersection of... commerce 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:45.560 and this exciting new broadcast technology. But 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:47.419 he also had a side hustle going, didn't he? He 00:02:47.419 --> 00:02:50.379 did. While he was building this very solid, lucrative 00:02:50.379 --> 00:02:53.539 career as an advertising manager, he loved performing 00:02:53.539 --> 00:02:56.840 comedy routines in his spare time. By 1924 and 00:02:56.840 --> 00:02:59.139 1925, he had actually built up quite a local 00:02:59.139 --> 00:03:02.539 following on the Boston radio station WEEI. Yeah, 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:05.479 he performed under the persona the bad boy from 00:03:05.479 --> 00:03:08.229 a good home. doing these comedic skits. He was 00:03:08.229 --> 00:03:10.289 also performing what was known as dialect comedy 00:03:10.289 --> 00:03:12.909 at private parties just to entertain friends. 00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:15.189 Let's pause on that term for a second because 00:03:15.189 --> 00:03:18.210 dialect comedy might sound a bit foreign or even 00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:21.210 controversial to a modern listener. What exactly 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:25.569 did that entail in the 1920s? That's great context 00:03:25.569 --> 00:03:28.439 to add. In the vaudeville era and early radio, 00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:31.419 America was this massive melting pot of recent 00:03:31.419 --> 00:03:34.379 immigrants. Mainstream entertainment heavily 00:03:34.379 --> 00:03:37.819 featured exaggerated caricatures of those immigrant 00:03:37.819 --> 00:03:41.159 experiences. Like Irish, Italian, Jewish, Greek 00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:44.360 characters. Exactly. Comedians would put on thick 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:47.020 theatrical accents and play up cultural stereotypes. 00:03:47.259 --> 00:03:49.580 At the time, it was a universally beloved mainstream 00:03:49.580 --> 00:03:52.180 form of entertainment, and Harry had a particular 00:03:52.180 --> 00:03:54.699 talent for a Greek dialect. I can picture that. 00:03:54.740 --> 00:03:57.000 He's a successful advertising executive by day, 00:03:57.060 --> 00:03:58.939 making a very good living at Kane's Furniture, 00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:01.479 and by night he's doing these exaggerated Greek 00:04:01.479 --> 00:04:03.939 voices at parties. It sounds like a fun party 00:04:03.939 --> 00:04:06.039 trick. How does a party trick become a profession? 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.259 It took an outside push. Harry had a friend, 00:04:09.379 --> 00:04:12.419 a Boston band leader named Joe Rimes, who recognized 00:04:12.419 --> 00:04:15.000 the raw talent. Rimes kept telling him that he 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:16.860 was too funny not to do it on a larger scale. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:19.279 Right, but he was hesitant. Very hesitant. He 00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:21.740 had a stable, successful career. But he finally 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:23.980 agreed to make a single guest appearance on Reince's 00:04:23.980 --> 00:04:27.379 radio program. For this specific skit, Harry 00:04:27.379 --> 00:04:30.100 developed a brand new character, the Greek chef 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:33.540 named nick parkia carcass parky carcass it is 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:36.379 inherently funny just to say out loud and apparently 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:38.759 the local boston listeners thought so too because 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.240 that single appearance exploded it was a massive 00:04:41.240 --> 00:04:43.740 hit the local response was so overwhelming that 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:46.079 the national networks quickly took notice what's 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:48.279 fascinating here is the sheer momentum of it 00:04:48.279 --> 00:04:50.300 yeah i want you to imagine having a creative 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:52.980 outlet that you just do for kicks and suddenly 00:04:53.370 --> 00:04:55.870 Almost overnight, the demand for it becomes so 00:04:55.870 --> 00:04:58.370 intense that it completely hijacks the trajectory 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:00.790 of your life. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:05:00.910 --> 00:05:03.529 because this was not just a gradual career shift. 00:05:03.589 --> 00:05:07.269 This was a rocket ship. In 1934, he gets his 00:05:07.269 --> 00:05:09.449 massive national break. He's brought on as a 00:05:09.449 --> 00:05:13.449 performer on Eddie Cantor's radio show. To understand 00:05:13.449 --> 00:05:16.569 the scale of that, network radio in the 1930s 00:05:16.569 --> 00:05:19.050 was the absolute center of American culture. 00:05:19.230 --> 00:05:22.050 And Eddie Cantor was a titan of the medium. A 00:05:22.050 --> 00:05:24.279 biggest of the big. Being on that show made you 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:26.959 a household name instantly. Throughout the mid 00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:29.759 to late 1930s, Harry is a staple on Cantor's 00:05:29.759 --> 00:05:32.079 show, and he's doing guest spots on the Al Jolson 00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:34.560 show as well. But he's not doing this as Harry 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:38.519 Einstein, the witty former ad man. No. He is 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.300 doing it entirely as this one specific character, 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:45.339 the Greek chef Nick Barky Karkas. The public 00:05:45.339 --> 00:05:47.699 didn't know Harry Einstein. They only knew Parkey 00:05:47.699 --> 00:05:49.759 Carcass. It's wild. The immersion was total. 00:05:49.939 --> 00:05:53.160 By 1945, his popularity was so immense that he 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:55.879 secured his own radio show on NBC called Meet 00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:58.199 Me at Parkey's. It ran for two seasons there 00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:00.180 before moving to the mutual broadcasting system. 00:06:00.379 --> 00:06:02.079 And he was writing for it too, right? Yeah, he 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:03.819 wasn't just a voice actor. Harry was writing 00:06:03.819 --> 00:06:05.680 most of those scripts himself, working alongside 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:08.079 other major talents of the era like Sheldon Leonard 00:06:08.079 --> 00:06:10.230 and Elliot Lewis. The Hollywood studios come 00:06:10.230 --> 00:06:12.709 calling around this time too. I see in the sources 00:06:12.709 --> 00:06:15.709 that within a decade he appeared in 11 different 00:06:15.709 --> 00:06:18.250 feature films. He did. Movies like Strike Me 00:06:18.250 --> 00:06:21.069 Pink, The Life of the Party, and New Faces in 00:06:21.069 --> 00:06:24.470 1937. And it was actually on the set of New Faces 00:06:24.470 --> 00:06:27.470 in 1937 that he met his second wife, the actress 00:06:27.470 --> 00:06:30.250 Thelma Leeds. Oh, interesting. But the most revealing 00:06:30.250 --> 00:06:32.889 detail about those films is the billing. If you 00:06:32.889 --> 00:06:35.970 look at the credits, he is rarely, if ever, credited 00:06:35.970 --> 00:06:39.120 as Harry Einstein. The studios credited him as 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:41.699 Parky Carcass, or sometimes just Parky. That 00:06:41.699 --> 00:06:45.399 level of dedication to a bit is wild. The sources 00:06:45.399 --> 00:06:47.720 mention he became so intertwined with this persona 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:49.939 that he actually took it to a courtroom. He tried 00:06:49.939 --> 00:06:52.100 to legally change his name to Parky Carcass. 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.579 A judge actually denied the request. Wait, hold 00:06:54.579 --> 00:06:56.980 on. He tried to legally erase his actual family 00:06:56.980 --> 00:06:59.139 name. Why would someone do that? Was it a massive 00:06:59.139 --> 00:07:02.139 ego trip or just a bizarre business move to protect 00:07:02.139 --> 00:07:04.699 his branding? If we connect this to the bigger 00:07:04.699 --> 00:07:08.149 picture. It is a fascinating study of an artist 00:07:08.149 --> 00:07:10.170 being completely consumed by their own creation. 00:07:10.509 --> 00:07:12.810 From a business standpoint, Parchia Carcass was 00:07:12.810 --> 00:07:15.230 the commodity that held all the value. But psychologically, 00:07:15.550 --> 00:07:18.149 it shows how a persona can become so large, it 00:07:18.149 --> 00:07:21.870 swallows the creator whole. For Harry, the character 00:07:21.870 --> 00:07:24.649 brought him incredible wealth and fame. But it 00:07:24.649 --> 00:07:26.910 also meant willfully erasing his own identity 00:07:26.910 --> 00:07:29.610 from his life's work. Yeah, true. To this day, 00:07:29.629 --> 00:07:32.230 if you go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:35.389 will not find a star for Harry Einstein. The 00:07:35.389 --> 00:07:37.910 brass lettering on his star bears the name of 00:07:37.910 --> 00:07:40.350 his character. That is haunting in a way. He 00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:42.470 built an empire, but he had to hand the keys 00:07:42.470 --> 00:07:45.850 over to a fictional Greek chef. But speaking 00:07:45.850 --> 00:07:47.970 of his empire, we have to talk about his real 00:07:47.970 --> 00:07:50.930 family tree. Because while his stage name was 00:07:50.930 --> 00:07:54.009 Parkey Carcass, his actual name, Einstein, would 00:07:54.009 --> 00:07:56.350 go on to be legendary in its own right. Harry 00:07:56.350 --> 00:07:59.050 had four sons in total. His first son, Charles 00:07:59.050 --> 00:08:01.629 Einstein, was from his first marriage to a woman 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:04.480 named Lillian Anchin. Charles grew up to become 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:06.980 a very successful writer. Then, with his second 00:08:06.980 --> 00:08:10.079 wife, Thelma Leeds, he had three more sons. One 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:12.540 of them, Clifford Einstein, echoed his father's 00:08:12.540 --> 00:08:15.060 early life by becoming a highly successful advertising 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:17.920 executive. But it is the other two sons that 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:20.180 really solidified the story as the bedrock of 00:08:20.180 --> 00:08:22.540 modern comedy. Another one of his sons is the 00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:25.160 legendary comedian, writer and Academy Award 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:27.699 nominated actor Albert Brooks. Albert Brooks, 00:08:27.959 --> 00:08:31.139 just an absolute giant of observational, neurotic, 00:08:31.180 --> 00:08:33.659 brilliant comedy. And if that wasn't enough, 00:08:33.840 --> 00:08:36.940 his other son is the beloved late comedian Bob 00:08:36.940 --> 00:08:38.899 Einstein. Right. If you were listening and that 00:08:38.899 --> 00:08:40.679 name doesn't immediately ring a bell, you almost 00:08:40.679 --> 00:08:43.220 certainly know his characters. He was the iconic 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:46.789 deadpan daredevil Super Dave Osborne. Or you 00:08:46.789 --> 00:08:49.129 might know him as the hilarious Marty Funkhauser 00:08:49.129 --> 00:08:52.409 on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Is an astonishing genetic 00:08:52.409 --> 00:08:55.649 passing down of entertainment talent. Yeah. But 00:08:55.649 --> 00:08:57.409 what is truly insightful is looking at how the 00:08:57.409 --> 00:09:00.870 comedy evolved across those generations. Let's 00:09:00.870 --> 00:09:02.809 dive into that because Harry was doing these 00:09:02.809 --> 00:09:05.850 very broad theatrical fake accent caricatures. 00:09:06.090 --> 00:09:09.090 That is the polar opposite of what his sons became 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:11.269 famous for. Exactly the opposite. It's almost 00:09:11.269 --> 00:09:13.230 as if the sons rebelled against the broadness 00:09:13.230 --> 00:09:15.210 of their father's era to create something entirely 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:17.789 new. Albert Brooks pioneered a highly nuanced, 00:09:18.110 --> 00:09:20.649 self -reflective, neurotic style of comedy that 00:09:20.649 --> 00:09:23.769 feels incredibly modern. And Bob Einstein became 00:09:23.769 --> 00:09:26.769 a master of anti -comedy and the deadpan delivery. 00:09:27.070 --> 00:09:28.929 But you can still see the father's influence, 00:09:29.149 --> 00:09:31.450 can't you? Especially with Bob Einstein's character, 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:34.129 Super Dave Osborne. You absolutely can. Think 00:09:34.129 --> 00:09:36.509 about Harry Einstein trying to legally change 00:09:36.509 --> 00:09:39.500 his name to Parkey Carcass. He never wanted to 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:42.179 break character. Bob Einstein did the exact same 00:09:42.179 --> 00:09:44.120 thing with Super Dave Osborne. Yeah, that's a 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:45.899 great point. For decades, Bob would appear on 00:09:45.899 --> 00:09:48.879 late -night talk shows in full costume, completely 00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:51.559 inhabiting the Super Dave persona, never once 00:09:51.559 --> 00:09:53.799 winking at the audience to acknowledge it was 00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:57.279 a joke. That ironclad dedication to a bit is 00:09:57.279 --> 00:10:00.379 a direct lineage from Harry. It is wild to realize 00:10:00.379 --> 00:10:02.919 that. Think about the comedic sensibilities you 00:10:02.919 --> 00:10:05.100 enjoy today when you watch a modern improvised 00:10:05.100 --> 00:10:07.980 show like Curb Your Enthusiasm or classic Albert 00:10:07.980 --> 00:10:10.620 Brooks movies like Broadcast News or Defending 00:10:10.620 --> 00:10:13.080 Your Life. You are experiencing comedic timing 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.779 that was directly influenced by a 1930s Greek 00:10:15.779 --> 00:10:18.799 dialect comedian from Boston. The through line 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:21.940 is unbroken. It is a phenomenal legacy. But as 00:10:21.940 --> 00:10:24.320 bright as that legacy is, the story of Harry 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.860 Einstein takes a very dark, incredibly theatrical 00:10:27.860 --> 00:10:30.720 turn in his later years. Let's set the stage 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:32.399 for this because the details are almost hard 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.519 to believe. By the late 1950s, Harry's health 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.220 was severely failing. He had a long history of 00:10:38.220 --> 00:10:40.279 heart disease, which drastically limited his 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:43.279 stamina and mobility. His national radio show 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:45.600 had ended, and his public appearances had become 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.659 quite rare. He mostly confined his performances 00:10:48.659 --> 00:10:52.200 to local Friars Club roasts. For listeners who 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:53.899 might not be familiar with the atmosphere of 00:10:53.899 --> 00:10:56.320 a mid -century Friars Club roast, these were 00:10:56.320 --> 00:10:59.399 private, smoke -filled, no -holds -barred dinners. 00:10:59.980 --> 00:11:02.159 Comedians would gather to mercilessly make fun 00:11:02.159 --> 00:11:04.179 of a guest of honor. It was considered a badge 00:11:04.179 --> 00:11:06.679 of honor to perform. You were in a room full 00:11:06.679 --> 00:11:09.080 of the sharpest, fastest, most ruthless minds 00:11:09.080 --> 00:11:10.990 in the entertainment industry. Which brings us 00:11:10.990 --> 00:11:14.490 to the night of Sunday, November 23, 1958. Harry 00:11:14.490 --> 00:11:17.629 is 54 years old. The Friars Club is hosting a 00:11:17.629 --> 00:11:20.090 massive roast at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and 00:11:20.090 --> 00:11:22.169 this one is a charity benefit for local hospitals. 00:11:22.529 --> 00:11:24.809 The guests of honor that night are Lucille Ball 00:11:24.809 --> 00:11:27.250 and Desi Arnaz. Because it's a hospital charity 00:11:27.250 --> 00:11:30.090 benefit, the audience is heavily populated with 00:11:30.090 --> 00:11:32.629 prominent physicians and surgeons. And seated 00:11:32.629 --> 00:11:35.090 up on the dais, the long head table facing the 00:11:35.090 --> 00:11:38.450 crowd, is a who's who of Hollywood royalty. Harry 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:40.919 gets up to the microphone. He delivers his comedy 00:11:40.919 --> 00:11:43.019 monologue, slipping right back into his Parkey 00:11:43.019 --> 00:11:45.980 Carcass persona. And by all accounts, he kills. 00:11:46.259 --> 00:11:49.559 The crowd absolutely loves it. He finishes his 00:11:49.559 --> 00:11:52.340 routine to massive applause and walks back to 00:11:52.340 --> 00:11:54.820 his seat on the dais, sitting right next to the 00:11:54.820 --> 00:11:57.519 legendary comedian Milton Berle. The emcee for 00:11:57.519 --> 00:11:59.779 the night is television host Art Linkletter. 00:12:00.139 --> 00:12:02.120 Linkletter takes the microphone after Harry sits 00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:04.779 down, looks out at the crowd and remarks, Every 00:12:04.779 --> 00:12:07.539 time he finishes, I ask myself, why isn't he 00:12:07.539 --> 00:12:10.110 on the air in a prime time? Harry turns to Milton 00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:11.950 Berle, who's seated right next to him, and says, 00:12:12.049 --> 00:12:14.870 yeah, how come? And the absolute second those 00:12:14.870 --> 00:12:17.269 words leave his mouth, Harry Einstein slumps 00:12:17.269 --> 00:12:19.789 over, unconscious, falling directly into Milton 00:12:19.789 --> 00:12:22.389 Berle's lap. He had just suffered a massive catastrophic 00:12:22.389 --> 00:12:25.409 heart attack. This is where the reality of the 00:12:25.409 --> 00:12:27.470 situation completely collides with the theatrical 00:12:27.470 --> 00:12:30.450 setting. Milton Berle panics and immediately 00:12:30.450 --> 00:12:33.049 starts shouting into the crowd, is there a doctor 00:12:33.049 --> 00:12:35.870 in the house? Which is the oldest, most worn 00:12:35.870 --> 00:12:38.980 out comedy cliche in the English language. They 00:12:38.980 --> 00:12:41.279 are at a comedy roast. People in the audience 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:43.399 and even some people on stage initially thought 00:12:43.399 --> 00:12:45.480 it was a joke. They thought Birtle was doing 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:47.980 a humorous ad lib to follow Harry's physical 00:12:47.980 --> 00:12:50.539 gag. But the horrifying gravity of the situation 00:12:50.539 --> 00:12:53.980 became clear very quickly. Because of the nature 00:12:53.980 --> 00:12:56.220 of the charity event, there wasn't just one doctor 00:12:56.220 --> 00:12:59.200 in the house. Five prominent physicians recognized 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.720 it was real and rushed the stage to help him. 00:13:01.799 --> 00:13:04.360 They carry Harry backstage behind the curtain. 00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:07.379 And what happens next is just a chaotic, desperate 00:13:07.379 --> 00:13:10.960 scene. The contrast is unbelievable. The medical 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:13.960 interventions they attempted were extreme and 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:17.179 improvised. According to the source, one surgeon 00:13:17.179 --> 00:13:19.759 literally took out his personal pocket penknife 00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:22.759 and made an incision in Harry's chest to perform 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.120 open heart massage right there on the backstage 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:28.200 floor. Another doctor scrambled to find the ends 00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:30.740 of a severed electric lamp cord and used the 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:33.340 exposed wires as a makeshift defibrillator to 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:35.519 try and shock his heart back into rhythm. And 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.159 while this visceral, bloody life and death struggle 00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:40.940 is happening just feet away behind a thin curtain, 00:13:41.100 --> 00:13:44.419 the show out front is awkwardly and surrealistically 00:13:44.419 --> 00:13:47.700 trying to continue. The audience is restless. 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:49.879 The comedians left on the bill were obviously 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.879 horrified and reluctant to go on. Art Linkletter. 00:13:53.210 --> 00:13:55.629 trying to manage the tension in the room, asks 00:13:55.629 --> 00:13:58.029 the singer Tony Martin to perform a song just 00:13:58.029 --> 00:14:00.570 to fill the dead air. And of all the songs in 00:14:00.570 --> 00:14:02.330 the Great American Songbook, Tony Martin makes 00:14:02.330 --> 00:14:04.750 the incredibly unfortunate choice to sing There's 00:14:04.750 --> 00:14:07.330 No Tomorrow. You literally cannot write a script 00:14:07.330 --> 00:14:09.830 darker than that. The irony is suffocating. The 00:14:09.830 --> 00:14:11.769 emotional toll in that room became palpable. 00:14:11.929 --> 00:14:14.710 The roasting completely stopped. Lucille Ball, 00:14:14.950 --> 00:14:16.649 the guest to honor, came to the microphone in 00:14:16.649 --> 00:14:19.309 tears and simply said, I can say nothing. Desi 00:14:19.309 --> 00:14:22.240 Arnaz was the closing speaker. He got up. looked 00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:24.539 at the crowd, and addressed the sheer tragedy 00:14:24.539 --> 00:14:27.200 of the moment. He said, this is one of those 00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:29.179 moments that Lucy and I have waited a lifetime 00:14:29.179 --> 00:14:32.360 for, but it's meaningless now. They say the show 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:35.500 must go on, but why must it? Let's close the 00:14:35.500 --> 00:14:38.000 show now by praying for this wonderful man backstage 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.360 who has made a world laugh. Despite two hours 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:43.679 of continuous, brutal resuscitation attempts 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:46.080 by the volunteer physicians and an emergency 00:14:46.080 --> 00:14:49.750 rescue squad, it wasn't enough. Harry Einstein 00:14:49.750 --> 00:14:52.409 was officially pronounced dead at 1 .20 a .m. 00:14:52.409 --> 00:14:55.409 on November 24th. The news sent shockwaves through 00:14:55.409 --> 00:14:57.350 the industry. The very next morning, his death 00:14:57.350 --> 00:14:59.190 was the front -page headline of the Los Angeles 00:14:59.190 --> 00:15:02.769 Times. It was a deeply public tragedy that unfolded 00:15:02.769 --> 00:15:05.009 in real time in front of his peers. Which brings 00:15:05.009 --> 00:15:07.549 us to the psychological aftermath. When a tragedy 00:15:07.549 --> 00:15:09.730 is that public and that intertwined with the 00:15:09.730 --> 00:15:12.269 very concept of performance in comedy, the ripple 00:15:12.269 --> 00:15:14.850 effects are profound, especially for his family. 00:15:15.100 --> 00:15:16.919 So what does this all mean? We have to look at 00:15:16.919 --> 00:15:19.320 how this deeply public trauma impacted his young 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:22.259 sons. Let's start with Bob Einstein. At the time 00:15:22.259 --> 00:15:24.340 of his father's death on that stage, Bob was 00:15:24.340 --> 00:15:27.519 just 16 years old. Bob actually spoke very candidly 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:30.269 about this years later. In an episode of Jerry 00:15:30.269 --> 00:15:32.929 Seinfeld's talk show, Comedians in Cars Getting 00:15:32.929 --> 00:15:35.769 Coffee, Bob shared that the incident of his father 00:15:35.769 --> 00:15:38.669 dying on stage completely turned him off from 00:15:38.669 --> 00:15:41.570 performing for many years. It pushed him far 00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:43.990 away from the spotlight. And it wasn't just the 00:15:43.990 --> 00:15:46.009 trauma of the death itself. It was the surreal 00:15:46.009 --> 00:15:48.730 nature of the funeral. The source notes that 00:15:48.730 --> 00:15:52.230 the funeral service had 300 mourners. And during 00:15:52.230 --> 00:15:54.970 the service, both Milton Berthel and George Jessel 00:15:54.970 --> 00:16:10.100 performed comedy routines as eulogies. Right. 00:16:12.139 --> 00:16:14.419 Bob told Jerry Seinfeld that it highly offended 00:16:14.419 --> 00:16:16.320 him and made him incredibly uncomfortable with 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:18.460 the whole culture of comedy. It felt entirely 00:16:18.460 --> 00:16:21.179 inappropriate to him. It took years for Bob to 00:16:21.179 --> 00:16:23.240 process that and find his own way back to comedy 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:26.039 entirely on his own terms. What about his younger 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:34.659 brother? This raises an important question. How 00:16:34.659 --> 00:16:38.480 do artists process deep foundational trauma through 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:41.759 their work? With Albert Brooks, critics and film 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:43.840 historians have long made the argument that he 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:46.019 spent his entire career dealing with the psychological 00:16:46.019 --> 00:16:48.220 weight of his father's passing through specific, 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.350 carefully crafted vignettes in his movies. There 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:53.710 is a perfect, almost heartbreaking example of 00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:56.830 this in Albert's 1991 masterpiece, Defending 00:16:56.830 --> 00:16:59.570 Your Life. Albert wrote, directed, and starred 00:16:59.570 --> 00:17:02.470 in the film. In the movie, his character, Daniel 00:17:02.470 --> 00:17:04.690 Miller, has recently died and finds himself in 00:17:04.690 --> 00:17:07.230 an afterlife judgment center. Yeah. Early in 00:17:07.230 --> 00:17:09.190 the film, he's sitting in an afterlife nightclub 00:17:09.190 --> 00:17:11.029 and he's watching a terrible, hacky comedian 00:17:11.029 --> 00:17:14.289 perform on stage. The comic looks down at Albert's 00:17:14.289 --> 00:17:16.329 character in the crowd and asks, how'd you die? 00:17:16.509 --> 00:17:19.029 And Albert's character replies, on stage, like 00:17:19.029 --> 00:17:21.849 you. It's a dark, brilliant joke on the surface. 00:17:22.029 --> 00:17:24.289 But when you know his family history, it gets 00:17:24.289 --> 00:17:27.089 incredibly poignant. Later, in that exact same 00:17:27.089 --> 00:17:29.769 scene, Meryl Streep's character invites Albert's 00:17:29.769 --> 00:17:32.210 character to leave the club with her. He looks 00:17:32.210 --> 00:17:34.430 at her, gestures toward the comedian feeling 00:17:34.430 --> 00:17:37.450 on stage, and says, I can't. That's my father. 00:17:37.690 --> 00:17:41.339 Wow. He took the most traumatic, chaotic moment 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:44.559 of his childhood, his father dying during a comedy 00:17:44.559 --> 00:17:46.960 performance surrounded by celebrities, and literally 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:49.400 wrote it into the afterlife of his own movie. 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:52.420 It is an incredibly powerful way to reclaim that 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:55.500 narrative. It perfectly illustrates how the physical 00:17:55.500 --> 00:17:59.000 stage was this deeply complex, almost haunted 00:17:59.000 --> 00:18:01.940 space for the Einstein family. It was the source 00:18:01.940 --> 00:18:04.019 of their greatest financial and creative successes, 00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:06.660 but it was also the literal site of their deepest, 00:18:06.700 --> 00:18:09.400 most public trauma. It really is a sweeping, 00:18:09.599 --> 00:18:12.339 multi -generational American story. To summarize 00:18:12.339 --> 00:18:14.460 this incredible journey, Harry Einstein started 00:18:14.460 --> 00:18:16.680 as a newspaper reporter and a Boston furniture 00:18:16.680 --> 00:18:18.680 advertising man who just wanted to make people 00:18:18.680 --> 00:18:21.640 laugh at parties. He nurtured a side hustle that 00:18:21.640 --> 00:18:24.180 exploded into a massive national radio sensation. 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:27.319 He became a character so incredibly famous, he 00:18:27.319 --> 00:18:29.299 took it to court to try and make it his legal 00:18:29.299 --> 00:18:32.319 name. He ultimately became the patriarch of a 00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:35.240 modern comedy dynasty. And his final curtain 00:18:35.240 --> 00:18:37.950 call delivering a flawless punchline. slumping 00:18:37.950 --> 00:18:40.349 into the arms of Milton Berle while a room full 00:18:40.349 --> 00:18:42.390 of doctors frantically tried to save him with 00:18:42.390 --> 00:18:45.089 a pocket knife and a lamp cord, it is as dramatic 00:18:45.089 --> 00:18:47.549 as any movie script Hollywood ever produced. 00:18:47.769 --> 00:18:50.109 It really makes you evaluate what you are actually 00:18:50.109 --> 00:18:53.039 consuming when you watch entertainment. Behind 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:55.839 every effortless laugh on a screen or every brilliant 00:18:55.839 --> 00:18:58.640 bit of comedic timing on a stage, there is almost 00:18:58.640 --> 00:19:01.380 always a deeply human, sometimes very painful, 00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:04.720 multi -generational story. Right. As an audience, 00:19:04.859 --> 00:19:07.200 we see the polished joke. We see the final product. 00:19:07.660 --> 00:19:10.279 But we rarely see the decades of family history, 00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.819 the profound grief and the hard -won triumphs 00:19:12.819 --> 00:19:14.640 that built the person telling it. You're never 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:17.160 just watching one person. You are watching the 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:20.259 culmination of their entire history. Which leaves 00:19:20.259 --> 00:19:22.220 us with a final thought for you to ponder today 00:19:22.220 --> 00:19:24.900 as you go about your week. We spent a lot of 00:19:24.900 --> 00:19:27.519 time discussing how Harry Einstein was so consumed 00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:30.140 by his Greek chef persona that his Hollywood 00:19:30.140 --> 00:19:34.339 Walk of Fame star forever says, and he begged 00:19:34.339 --> 00:19:36.779 a judge to let him legally abandon the family 00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:40.230 name Einstein. If our identities are ultimately 00:19:40.230 --> 00:19:42.609 shaped by the personas we put on for the world, 00:19:42.730 --> 00:19:44.650 what happens when the line between the character 00:19:44.650 --> 00:19:47.410 and the actual human completely disappears? And 00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:49.390 more importantly, when that line vanishes in 00:19:49.390 --> 00:19:51.490 the pursuit of success, what does it do to the 00:19:51.490 --> 00:19:53.650 people we leave behind, the ones who just wanted 00:19:53.650 --> 00:19:56.250 the human and not the character? Something to 00:19:56.250 --> 00:19:58.470 think about. Thanks for joining us on this deep 00:19:58.470 --> 00:19:58.670 dive.