Irwin Corey, age 102

[danny burstein]

From a usually reliable source
posted to Twitter.

Little confirmation

Randy Credico @Credico2016

At 6:27pm we lost Professor Irwin Corey

_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Bryan Styble]

Absolutely dreadful news.

But what a run--the World's Greatest Authority indeed!

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[Bryan Styble]

Yikes! And d'oh!

I got the late great professor's catchphrase wrong--he was The World's Foremost Authority !

Oh, and thanks for all the head-scratching laughs, Prof.

STYBLE/Florida

[cathyc...@aol.com]

Absolutely dreadful? He was 102. What could be dreadful?

[MJ Emigh]

Q: Professor, do you believe in sex before marriage?

A: Not if it delays the ceremony!

[David Carson]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2017 21:19:40 -0500, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com>
wrote:

>From a usually reliable source
>posted to Twitter.
>
>Little confirmation

This has still not been confirmed. His Wikipedia entry noting his death
refers to Google Search results, which are driven solely by his Wikipedia
entry.

[Rich Penis Leavitt]

On 07-Feb-17 07:13, cathyc...@aol.com wrote:
> Absolutely dreadful? He was 102. What could be dreadful?

His brother Richard Corey killed himself. That was dreadful.

[A Friend]

In article <o7cir4$qsh$1...@dont-email.me>, David Carson

It's now been confirmed. Thanks for everything, Professor. RIP.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/professor-irwin-corey-dead-comedia
n-928653

"Professor" Irwin Corey, Comic Master of Intellectual Doublespeak, Dies
at 102

6:27 AM PST 2/7/2017 by Duane Byrge, Mike Barnes

"Professor" Irwin Corey, who forged a long career in show business
using a talent for "intellectual doublespeak" ‹ comic
stream-of-consciousness riffs that went absolutely nowhere ‹ has died.
He was 102.

A jumbled mix of Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin who billed himself
as "The World's Foremost Authority" on just about anything, Corey died
Monday at his home in Manhattan, his son, Richard, told The Washington
Post.

Outfitted in a black frock and string tie and looking like a dowdy,
wild-haired professor, the Brooklyn native was a familiar presence on
variety shows and talk shows in the 1960s and '70s, appearing on
programs hosted by the likes of Jackie Gleason, Steve Allen, Jack Paar,
Joey Bishop, Mike Douglas, Johnny Carson and later David Letterman.
Lenny Bruce was a big fan.

Corey skewered high-minded folks with "professorial" utterances that
were endless goofball streams of academic-sounding nonsense. He began
most of his sentences midstream with, "However.Š"

Perhaps Corey's most memorable spoof of the elite came when the
famously shy Thomas Pynchon asked him to accept the author's National
Book Award for fiction in 1974 for Gravity's Rainbow. To those
assembled at the luncheon, Corey rambled on with a loopy, off-the-wall
discourse on literary theory.

One of his more famous fatuisms ­ "If we don't change direction soon,
we'll end up where we're going" ‹ was the sort of thing that might have
been said by Yogi Berra. "Wherever you go, there you are" was another
one of his philosophical truisms.

Corey's career spanned eight decades, ranging from vaudeville, stage
and radio to TV and motion pictures.

At age 87, he appeared in Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
(2001). Three years later, he won rave reviews for his Broadway
performance as a flustered court clerk in Sly Fox, which starred
Richard Dreyfuss.

In the manic Michael Schultz film Car Wash (1976), Corey was hilarious
when he was mistaken for a "pop-bottle bomber" and got chased around
the premises.

The New York Times asked him about the meaning of life in a 2008
interview, and he answered as only he could:

"One of the things that you've got to understand is that we've got to
develop a continuity in order to relate to exacerbate those whose
curiosity has not been defended," he said, "yet the information given
can no longer be used as allegoric because the defendant does not use
the evidence which can be substantiated by."

Then he asked, "What was the question?²

Corey was born on July 29, 1914. His parents were so destitute, they
placed him and his five siblings in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New
York. He performed in nightclubs around New York, was a groundbreaker
in improvisational comedy in the 1930s and performed as one of the
"New Faces of 1943" on Broadway.

Corey thrived on not only lampooning the pretentious, but also on
satirizing social institutions. In 1959-60, he ran for president years
before Pat Paulsen of the Smothers Brothers fame did it. Corey's
campaign, on Hugh Hefner¹s Playboy ticket, mocked the system: "I will
run for any party with bottle in hand," he said.

Corey made his big-screen debut in How to Commit Marriage (1969),
starring Gleason and Bob Hope. He portrayed Marlo Thomas' father on
Broadway in 1974's Thieves, written by Herb Gardner, and they reprised
their roles for a 1977 film that also starred Charles Grodin, who had
directed the play.

Gardner then brought back Corey to play a spry octogenarian in the 1996
release I'm Not Rappaport, and the actor appeared opposite Robin
Williams that year in Francis Ford Coppola's Jack.

Fran, his wife of 70 years, died in 2011.

[Anglo Saxon]

Ah, yes. It happened one calm summer night. Clean flavored, he was.
<shaking my head sadly>

[Bryan Styble]

Several thoughtful commentators above have quite reasonably questioned my employment of the term "dreadful" as being hyperbolic, inasmuch as the late Corey had attained the rare century-of-life mark.

I of course understand the thinking of those who figure that, given life expectancy figures, anyone who made it to 102 should be satisfied...and indeed, should I somehow reach my own quixotic target age of 101-and-change in 2056, I suspect I'll by that point be sated with life.

But that's the comparatively-ignorant perspective of a 62-year-old ! As for Corey, the moment he made 100, I began hoping he could somehow hang on and make 110, or at least 105. ESPECIALLY since some sources claimed he was still occasionally active professionally.

As I've previously explicated herein, I'm for EVERYONE living as long as they possibly can, as long as they desire it. That is, I never welcome the deaths of ANYONE, no matter how much certain types--Rasputin, Kohoe, Himmler, Huberty, Whitman, Manson, Gacy, Saddam, ad nauseam--may forfeit their individual rights to life. Each deserved to die, OBVIOUSLY. But this secular guy considers life so precious--and such a remarkable, if apparently natural, "miracle"--that I can never celebrate even such clearly necessary deaths.

In the case of Corey, his artistic contribution to humanity wasn't merely the repertoire of yet another funny stand-up comic; rather, he all but invented an entirely new genre of humor, and one which in the process happened to lampoon the insufferable pretentiousness of academia. So yeah, it's definitely dreadful that humanity has been deprived of a few more such pomposity-deflating jokes.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[Larry Liberal]

On 07-Feb-17 13:37, Bryan Styble wrote:
> Several thoughtful commentators above have quite reasonably questioned my employment of the term "dreadful" as being hyperbolic, inasmuch as the late Corey had attained the rare century-of-life mark.

Nobody gives a fuck, asshole.

[tr...@iwvisp.com]

Do you actually speak like this or just write like this?

Ray Arthur

[Bryan Styble]

Uh...if you're disinterested, however so spectacularly, Sir "Larry", that's perfectly fine with me. But those semantically-scrupulous folk who responded clearly, for whatever their reasons, care. Or, in your coarse formulation, "give".

I wish you good luck and health.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[tr...@iwvisp.com]

Interesting Facebook post from Irwin's friend Bob Greenberg...

Irwin passed away at 6:27 PM tonight in his home.
He had just eaten Vanilla Ice Cream Swirl followed by Egg Drop Soup. (The Ice Cream didn't satisfy him so he sent his son out to get the soup.) After the soup he complained that the covers were too heavy on his feet. (This was odd since he usually complained that there wasn't enough covering him.)
His Nurse adjusted them and when she looked up he was gone.
Irwin, Rest-In-Peace, my friend... 102 & 1/2 was a damn good run! "...However!"

[cathyc...@aol.com]

What did Walt Whitman do to you Styble that you wanted his death?

[Bryan Styble]

CathyC asked a reasonable question:

What did Walt Whitman do to you, [Mr.] Styble, that you wanted his death?
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, I always thought "Leaves of Grass" might have sounded better as lyrics, but I long ago forgave him for that aesthetic crime. And as far I know, unlike some Whitmans, he never had ambitions as a sniper.

But the fact is, I was referring to the guy of Whitman Sampler fame; his tempting chocolates once threw me off my diet, and that's unforgivable.

I appreciate your curiosity.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[Bryan Styble]

Oh, and I regret misspelling Andrew Kehoe's surname above, which would surely be a lot more familiar had Lucky Lindy not flown into history the same week.

And in answer to Ray Arthur's query: well, I always endeavor to speak as grammatically and syntactically intact as I attempt to write, but obviously never have the advantage of editing, except on the verbal fly, which naturally results in all sorts of annoying subsidiary passages. So yes, but no.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

[cathyc...@aol.com]

I went for the Whitman who is actually famous.

[MJ Emigh]

On Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 4:22:09 PM UTC-6, Bryan Styble wrote:
I was referring to the guy of Whitman Sampler fame

I don't want to blow the joke, but I can tell you that even here in Texas there are few who remember. For me, the memory is kept alive by an occasional listen to Kinky's song about him.

[Guilty Bastard]

Just skip over 'em.

[Sarah Ehrett]

Best advice. :)

[MJ Emigh]

On Tuesday, February 7, 2017 at 8:48:27 AM UTC-6, Rich Penis Leavitt wrote:
> His brother Richard Corey killed himself. That was dreadful.

Same old story. He was depressed after finding that the "e" in his name had been forever taken from him.