<Archive Obituary> Sam Kinison (April 10th 1992)
Bill Schenley
Entertainer: The Shock Comedian Was Sobering Up, Associates
Say. A Teen-Ager Is Held In The Collision
Photo: http://www.albundy.net/other_pics/special/sam.jpg
FROM: The Los Angeles Times (April 12th 1992) ~
By Amy Wallace, Staff Writer
They were the kind of kids to whom comedian Sam Kinison's
bellowing stage persona was often said to appeal -- two
young men, in their late teens, driving fast in an old
pick-up on a Friday night.
Their 1974 Chevrolet truck reportedly was filled with beer
cans as they tore down U.S. Highway 95, swerving into
oncoming traffic near the California-Nevada border. Moments
after hitting Kinison's Pontiac Trans-Am head-on, fatally
injuring the comedian and knocking his new wife unconscious,
one of the teen-agers had only this to say, according to
witnesses: "God! Look at my truck!"
On Saturday, Kinison's friends said they could not believe
how he had died. The 38-year-old comedian, who made his
reputation as a hard-drinking, loudmouthed wild man, had
just returned from his Hawaii honeymoon with Malika, the
26-year-old Las Vegas dancer he had married a week ago
today. He was settling down, friends said, sobering up and
trying to "come into the mainstream."
"I can't accept it. Especially the fact that he was not
doing anything wrong," said comedian Richard Belzer, an old
friend, who noted that Kinison was on his way to work -- a
sold-out show in Laughlin, Nev. -- when he died. "He was
going to a job. His wife was in the car. It wasn't a drug
overdose. It wasn't self-indulgence. He was living a clean
life."
Immediately after the crash, which occurred near Needles at
about 7:30 p.m., Kinison at first appeared fine, said
friends who watched the crash from a second car and reported
that beer cans from the pickup were strewn across the
highway. With what appeared to be only cuts on his lips and
forehead, he wrenched himself free from his mangled vehicle,
lying down only after friends begged him to.
"He said: 'I don't want to die, I don't want to die,' " said
Carl LaBove, Kinison's best friend and longtime opening act,
who held the comedian's bleeding head in his hands. Kinison
paused, as if listening to a voice that LaBove could not
hear.
"But why?" asked Kinison, a former Pentecostal preacher. It
sounded, LaBove said, as if "he was having a conversation,
talking to somebody else. He was talking upstairs. Then I
heard him go, 'OK, OK, OK.' The last 'OK' was so soft and at
peace. . . . Whatever voice was talking to him gave him the
right answer and he just relaxed with it. He said it so
sweet, like he was talking to someone he loved."
Kinison died at the scene from internal injuries, according
to authorities. An autopsy is planned.
Police did not release the name of the Las Vegas teen-ager
who was driving the pickup truck, but California Highway
Patrol dispatcher Tine Schmitt said the youth had been taken
to Juvenile Hall in San Bernardino, where he was being held
on suspicion of felony manslaughter.
Schmitt said the driver sustained moderate injuries and his
passenger, also a juvenile, was more seriously hurt. Malika
Kinison was in serious condition Saturday at Needles Desert
Community Hospital.
Those in Kinison's entourage speculated that the youths had
been drinking. Majid Khoury, Kinison's personal assistant,
said there was beer in the back of the truck and in its cab.
"It was all over the place," Majid said. The CHP refused to
discuss whether the two teen-agers were drunk or whether
they had been given blood-alcohol tests.
Friends described Kinison as a warm man, generous to a
fault -- a description that seemed at odds with his brazen
brand of humor. Especially in the early years of his career,
the rotund comic was the king of shock comedy -- vulgar,
vitriolic and ear-splittingly loud. To many, he was
downright offensive.
Where other comedians joked about sex, Kinison screamed
about carnal relations among lepers and homosexual
necrophilia. Other favorite targets included televangelists,
women and Andrew Dice Clay, the abrasive comedian to whom
Kinison hated being compared. He even had a few jokes about
driving under the influence.
On Kinison's 1988 album "Have You Seen Me Lately?" he
defended drunk driving this way: "How else are we gonna get
our cars home?"
But even Kinison's critics admitted that he was much more
than another gross-out comedian. At his best, he was a
biting social commentator. The son of a preacher from
Peoria, Ill., Kinison was particularly brilliant, many said,
at dissecting religious hypocrisy.
In a riff on fallen televangelist Jim Bakker, Kinison
imagined Judas, sitting in heaven, saying: "Maybe I'll get a
reprieve." Jesus, meanwhile, "was goin' through the Bible
sayin', 'Where did I say: "Build a water slide?" ' "
Mitzi Shore, owner of the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard
in Los Angeles, the club where Kinison's act first caught
fire, said: "Sam was a healer, a comedy innovator, a
brilliance. To hear his tirades in the main room on his
special night were moments in comedy that will never be
repeated. Wherever Sam is now, he is resting and we will
dearly never, never forget."
Belzer called his friend "one of the best comedians of his
age. Beneath the rebel was a man with a real heart who had
something to say about religion and politics. A lot of the
audience went (to his shows) to see the wild man. But they
came away having done a double-take on certain issues."
Rodney Dangerfield, another longtime buddy of Kinison,
agreed.
"It's a big loss to people who want to laugh," said
Dangerfield, who had featured Kinison in his 1986 movie
"Back to School."
In recent years, some said, Kinison's act had gotten tamer.
Instead of the homeless, he aimed his razor-wit at Vice
President Dan Quayle, who he said was greeted at Cabinet
meetings by the chorus: "Hey, Dan's here. Anyone want
anything from Burger King?" After the gay and lesbian
community took him to task for his jokes about AIDS, Kinison
publicly repented, calling himself "insensitive" and
promising to no longer make light of the AIDS epidemic.
In his personal life, too, Kinison -- who once described his
past cocaine use as being so heavy he used a garden hose to
inhale -- had mellowed as well.
Kinison, who starred in the Fox comedy series called
"Charlie Hoover," had been negotiating with the television
network to do a variety show and was expecting to sign a
two-movie deal next week, said Bill Kinison, his brother and
manager. He said the comedian was looking forward to getting
off the road for awhile, leaving the reckless lifestyle
behind and spending more time with his family and friends.
"We had taken a turn in the career that we had been wanting
to take," Bill Kinison said. "He knew he couldn't live on
the road forever."
A week ago, before a small gathering of friends at the
Candlelight Chapel in Las Vegas, he and Malika had
formalized their five-year relationship -- marrying at 2
a.m. on the birthday of Kinison's late father.
"He said it would be a tribute, and an easy day to
remember," said Florence Troutman, Kinison's publicist.
Dressed in a tuxedo and red bow tie, Kinison wept, Troutman
said, as he recited his vows. "He was very happy."
Kinison and his wife spent last week at the Mauna Kea Beach
Hotel on the Kona Coast, arriving back in Los Angeles early
Friday. Kinison, who had been on a back-breaking road tour
for much of the last year, had a sold-out show scheduled
that night at the Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino. He was,
friends said, revived and ready to work.
At midday, the Kinisons headed east, the lead car of a
two-car caravan -- Kinison's brother, his personal assistant
Khoury and LaBove followed in the van that also carried
Kinison's dog, a Lhasa apso named Russo. Three miles north
of Needles, LaBove was startled awake in the back seat.
"I heard Bill saying: 'Watch out for that guy, Sam. That
guy's in your lane,' " LaBove said. "Then I heard Bill
scream, 'Watch him, Sam! Watch him!' Then I heard the most
horrendous crash."
The van skidded to a stop, LaBove said. Bill Kinison ran to
check on his brother and, thinking that he was merely
shaken, turned his attention to the driver of the pickup
truck. The teen-ager was out of the cab, surveying his
crushed windshield and seemingly uninterested in the human
damage that had been done, LaBove said.
"He said: 'God! Look at my truck!' And Bill said: 'You think
you've got problems now, you don't know who you hit,' "
LaBove said. "He was thinking Sam was going to get out of
the car yelling. He thought Sam was OK."
---
Sam Kinison multimedia:
http://www.samkinison.org/Site/Multimedia/comedy.htm
Photos: http://www.samkinison.org/Site/Multimedia/comedy.htm
(Malika Souiri Kinison)
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/k/kinison/Malika&prancer03.jpg
Death Certificate:
http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/k/kinison/dc.jpg
Sam Kinison quotes:
"I'm like anyone else on this planet -- I'm very moved by world
hunger. I see the same commercials, with those little kids, starving,
and very depressed. I watch those kids and I go, 'Fuck, I know the
FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!' There's a director five
feet away going, 'DON'T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT
DOESN'T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!' But I'm not trying to make fun
of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want
to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people food. Don't send these
people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want
to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them U-Hauls, some luggage, send them
a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day
with your food, for, like, the last thirty or forty years, and we were
driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that
there wouldn't BE world hunger, if you people would LIVE WHERE THE
FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING
GROWS OUT HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS
IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW? IT'S GONNA
BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT,
WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE
DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!"
"I don't condone wife-beating. I UNDERSTAND IT."
(After the death of his brother) "Liberace! You dead fag! Stay away
form my brother!"
"I called a detox center - just to see how much it would cost: $13,000
for three weeks! My friends, if you can come up with thirteen grand,
you don't have a problem yet"
"Jesus had a tough life. I read about that guy. Jesus is the only guy
that ever came back from the dead that didn't scare the fuck out of
everybody!"
"I have lived a carnal life. My view of life is 'If you're going to
miss Heaven, why miss it by two inches? Miss it!' I don't have to go
through the thing of paying for it in the next life. I know I'm
screwed in the next life."
"People go, aren't you worried about Hell?' No. No, because I WAS
MARRIED FOR TWO FUCKIN' YEARS! HELL WOULD BE LIKE CLUB MED! HELL WOULD
BE LIKE A FUCKIN' RESORT!!!"
"There's no happy ending to cocaine. You either die, you go to jail,
or else you run out."
"Sure I want to use computers, since I've never fucked anything up AT
THE SPEED OF LIGHT BEFORE!"
And, of course:
"That's when you know you're
pretty fucked up, when it makes
sense to fall asleep... I was driving
between Needles and Barstow...
It's about 120 miles of desert...
It's four in the morning, man...
Hey, this is a pretty good time to
go to sleep ...
(SCREAMS HYSTERICALLY)
So I totaled this fuckin' car out, man!...
I fuckin' totaled it! And it made SENSE
at the time!"