Professor Irwin Corey

Comedian, activist and actor -- via the Washington Post. AKA The World's Foremost Authority. An epic life story -- his mother put him and his siblings in an orphanage when teir father deserted her. He rose the rails, worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps, boxed. An extreme leftist, he got his big break as a writer and performer in the landmark union musical review Pins and Needles, which ran on Broadway from 1937 to 1940. He worked nightclubs, burlesque, streetccorners. He was blacklisted in the 1950s. He worked in radio, TV, and film; he was a master of what used to be called the "doubletalk" act (Sid Caesar and Danny Kaye were also noted for it; Reggie Watts does it today). His anarchic sendups of intellect, propriety, stuffiness, hypocrisy, and the general madness of life were needed.