{"id":62475,"date":"2021-07-25T17:04:57","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T23:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=62475"},"modified":"2021-07-25T17:13:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T23:13:48","slug":"legendary-jewish-stand-up-comedian-jackie-mason-dies-at-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/legendary-jewish-stand-up-comedian-jackie-mason-dies-at-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary Jewish stand-up comedian Jackie Mason dies at 93"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dateline\">(<em>JNS.org<\/em>)<\/span> \u2013 Jackie Mason, a former rabbi who went from Catskills comic to hit one-man shows, passed away on Saturday at the age of 93.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_62476\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-62476\" class=\"wp-image-62476 size-medium lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1.jpg 880w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/169;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-62476\" class=\"wp-image-62476 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Jackie-Mason-880x495-1.jpg 880w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-62476\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jackie Mason. (Twitter)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Mason died at 6:00 p.m. at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. His death was confirmed by longtime friend and entertainment lawyer Raoul Felder,&nbsp;<em>AP<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n<p>His memory was honored by celebrities of all stripes. Jason Alexander of \u201cSeinfeld\u201d fame tweeted, \u201cI took my folks to see Jackie Mason on Broadway twice. I have never seen them laugh harder. A comic from a different time but one of the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mason was born Jacob Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on June 9, 1928. His family moved to Manhattan when he was 5 years old. He came from a family of rabbis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot only his father, but his grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfathers had all been rabbis. His three older brothers became rabbis, and his two younger sisters married rabbis,\u201d&nbsp;<em>The New York Times<\/em>&nbsp;reported in its obituary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was unheard-of to think of anything else,\u201d Mason once said. \u201cBut I knew, from the time I\u2019m 12, I had to plot to get out of this, because this is not my calling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He eventually settled on comedy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think people who feel comfortable or happy are motivated to become comedians. You\u2019re searching for something and you\u2019re willing to pay a high price to get that attention,\u201d he told&nbsp;<em>AP<\/em>&nbsp;in 1987.<\/p>\n<p>Mason started his show business career working summers in the Catskills in upstate New York, known as the \u201cBorscht Belt\u201d for its summer resorts that catered to Jewish families starting in the 1920s.<\/p>\n<p>He began to pursue his career in earnest after his father died in 1959. In 1961, he got his first big break, an appearance on \u201cThe Steve Allen Show.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, disaster struck his career in 1964 on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show\u201d when he held up his fingers to the audience in annoyance after Sullivan held up two fingers indicating the number of minutes he had left to wrap up his act. Sullivan was convinced Mason was giving the audience the finger. It caused his career to nosedive.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1980s, Mason made a comeback with the help of his producer Jyll Rosenfeld, who became his wife in 1991. She convinced him to turn his act into a one-man show on Broadway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat show, \u2018The World According to Me!,\u2019 opened on Broadway in December 1986 and ran for two years. It earned Mason a special Tony Award in 1987, as well as an Emmy for writing when HBO aired an abridged version in 1988,\u201d the&nbsp;<em>Times<\/em>&nbsp;reported.<\/p>\n<p>Mason said in 1988 of his comeback, \u201cThey see me as today\u2019s comedian. Thank God I stunk for such a long time and was invisible, so I could be discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mason is survived by his wife Jyll Rosenfeld, and daughter, actress and comedian Sheba Mason.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Legendary%20Jewish%20stand-up%20comedian%20Jackie%20Mason%20dies%20at%2093\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7139,25,19],"tags":[5431,8435,11553,8790,8795,8788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62477,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions\/62477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}