Lenny Bruce Summary

Bruce, Lenny (1925-1966) From the late 1940s until his death in the 1960s, Lenny Bruce's unique comedy included social commentary, "lewd" material, and pointed personal monologues... Read more

American comedian Lenny Bruce (1925-1966) made fun of everything held sacred during the 1950s and early 1960s, from the Lone Ranger television character to the Pope and Jesus Christ. His irreverent "a... Read more

Critical Essay by Ralph J. Gleason Lenny Bruce [is] a wildly insane comic whose material is beyond surrealism, farther out than Mort Sahl and devastating in its attacks on the pompous, the pious and t... Read more

Critical Essay by Douglas Watt Bruce's humor was savage as well as irreverent. A slight, intense figure, he would begin his turn, which lasted, I would guess, perhaps the better part of an hour... Read more

Critical Essay by Gene Marine [Why do] they love him, this over-40 veteran of the strip circuit and the sleazy clubs, who had become more or less famous without ever making it big? What, in short, had... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Luckett Bruce's acts depended to a great extent on a multitude of masks, as swiftly dropped as assumed, and each distinguished by a particular tone of voice and manner... Read more

Critical Essay by Michael Murray Probably too much has been and will be made of Lenny Bruce. For all his passion for truth, his vision was one-dimensional and circumscribed by the world of strip-joint... Read more

Critical Essay by Frank Kofsky [Bruce] arrived at an innovation that was, for its time, genuinely revolutionary: he would synthesize the vocation of nightclub comedian with the point of view of a radi... Read more

Critical Essay by Andrew Kopkind Lenny Bruce's life was an event in the history of radical culture in America, as well as an episode in the development of comedy. From beginnings as a lousy Jew... Read more

Critical Essay by Martin Williams Probably it is a symptom of our particular American education that nowadays when a man gets off a few good ones aimed at City Hall or the local upper crust, our journ... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert Ruark [Lenny Bruce gives his] customers an hour of unleavened four-letter words plus gross assaults on motherhood, the Testaments Old and New, and vivid descriptions of the mo... Read more

Critical Essay by Nat Hentoff Bruce has been exiled from the American way of laughter because of his unyielding insistence on excavating his material from our most cherished hypocrisies and most anxio... Read more