It’s 1967. In an ordinary suburban house somewhere in New Jersey, USA, a middle-aged couple have just decided to take the plunge and invest in some aluminium siding. (It’s a wild opening to the article, I know, but please try to contain yourself.) The salesman who’s come to settle the deal seems nice and reassuring, a fast-talking sort who knows his stuff and drops in a few gags. Make that a lot of gags. In fact, he’s had the husband in stitches throughout.

He’s so funny, the husband finally remarks, that the man ought to be on stage.

The salesman looks at his watch. ‘Say, that reminds me, d’you folks mind if I put your TV on? There’s something I really wanna catch.’

The husband and wife exchange glances. ‘Okay,’ the wife says hesitatingly. ‘I guess.’ Odd request, but why not? Their guest has behaved himself so far.

The salesman goes over and switches on the set. It’s The Ed Sullivan Show, America’s legendary variety programme that’s launched the careers of countless stars over the years. On screen, Ed appears and introduces the next act, an up and coming comic with the unlikely name of Rodney Dangerfield. To the sound of applause, the man himself walks on stage.

It takes the husband and wife – already a little disorientated – a moment to twig: the comic on screen and the man sitting on their couch are the same person! The salesman, who’d introduced himself earlier as Jacob Cohen, is watching himself perform on one of the most famous shows in television.

‘B-but… th-that,’ the husband stutters, glancing between the TV and his guest. ‘Is that you?’

The salesman looks up and grins. ‘If it’s not, it’s the guy who stole my suit.’

It doesn’t make sense. How can this guy who looks nearly fifty be both an ordinary salesman and an act on primetime television?

Now positively discombobulated, the couple joins Mr. Cohen – or is that Mr. Dangerfield? – on the couch and watches entranced as the man fires out a string of one-liners. He’s different on stage. He’s even funnier. He moves differently, yet there’s something else too. Mr. Cohen the salesman seems confident and professional, and gives off an air of success. Mr. Dangerfield the comic, however, is schlubby and downtrodden. His jokes are all about how put-upon he is and how nothing goes right for him in life.

‘My psychiatrist told me I was crazy,’ comes one joke. ‘I said, “I want a second opinion.” He said, “Okay, you’re ugly too.”‘

The two personas are worlds apart. Salesmen, of course, are notorious for putting across an image of themselves, and here he was putting across two totally different personas. Naturally, the question arises: which of the two is closer to the real man?

Struggling

Image and self-perception were issues that dogged Rodney Dangerfield his whole life. The problems stemmed from his childhood. Forgive me for digging up the old cliche about comedians and unhappy childhoods, but I have to. By any measure, Rodney’s upbringing was miserable.

Rodney jokes were all true. They were all based on his perception of himself…. He always felt someone was trying to take advantage of him or betray him… This was something from his childhood. He was so wronged by his parents he could never overcome it.

– Harold Ramis

Born in 1921 as Jacob Cohen, Rodney grew up in various working class districts of New York. His father, a vaudeville performer, was away working most of time and had little to do with his son. Rodney’s mother was emotionally very distant, showing no interest in her offspring and displaying a lack of affection that bordered on resentment.

One story goes that his aunt came round one day to join his mother in going to the cinema.

‘I want to go too!’ said little Rodney.

His mother eyed him dubiously before capitulating. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So long as you clean yourself up beforehand.’

Overjoyed, the kid dashed into the bathroom to wash his face and comb his hair. By the time he emerged, he found the house empty. In searching, he glanced through the window and saw his mother and aunt. They were already at the end of the street, running away and giggling.

Cruelty and indifference were par for the course. There was little laughter in Rodney’s life, at least no laughter where he wasn’t the victim of the joke. But then one evening at dinner, the young kid complains about feeling hungry despite having cleared his plate.

‘No,’ his mother admonishes him. ‘You’ve had sufficient.’

‘But,’ replies a confused Rodney, ‘I didn’t have any fish.’

Cue riotous laughter from everyone around the table. Once again, he’s the butt of the joke. Yet this time, something’s different. Sure, everyone’s laughing at him, but they’re laughing at his remark, not somebody else’s jibe. He’d made them laugh, and that felt good. Really good.

Rodney was immediately hooked and would spend the rest of his life pursuing that feeling.

Comedy was absolutely an escape for Rodney’s pain. It was the only thing that really made him happy.

– Joan Child (Dangerfield’s second wife)

As soon as he was old enough, Rodney leapt on stage and tried building a career as a professional comedian. After all, what better way was there to regularly get that feeling?

Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be that simple. Taking the stage name Jack Roy, he hit the circuit in the late 1930s, just as vaudeville was giving way to networks of night clubs and dinner theatres. Every night, Rodney was just one of several acts, sharing the stage with singers, knife throwers, fire eaters, strippers and, of course, other comedians. Night after night, week after week, month after month, he worked and jostled for attention, trying to make himself stand out from the competition, earning just $5 – $15 per night for his troubles. As was common for comedians of the era, he didn’t just tell jokes, he also tried singing, using props, and doing impressions. None of it did any good.

It wasn’t that he was a bad comic, he just couldn’t break out. He seemed to lack a certain something, but what that might be eluded Rodney. It wasn’t the lack of an image, that’s for sure. He was known on the circuit as ‘Angry’ Jack Roy owing to the combative way he told jokes. He was a comedian who had a bone to pick with the world, and while that might have matched his underlying attitude to life at the time, it didn’t especially endear him to his audience. As months of struggle turned into years, that anger seemed increasingly warranted as he continued getting absolutely nowhere.

Then one day, Rodney looked up and noticed the 1950s had arrived. He was about to enter his fourth decade of life without money, success or a career worth speaking of. Rather than providing the thrill of laughter, his attempted comic career had left him seriously depressed.

A Life More Ordinary

Around this time, Rodney fell in love with Joyce Indig, a singer who’d grown similarly disillusioned with showbiz. Together they decided to get married, quit the business and settle down to an ordinary life. The name of Jack Roy disappeared from the theatrical lineups – not that anybody noticed.

I was so little known when I quit show business that I was the only one who knew I quit.

– Rodney Dangerfield

Now that he was plain old Jacob Cohen again, it was time to get a respectable career. He chose to become a salesman, and specialised in selling aluminium siding, a popular product at the time.

Rodney turned out to be a good at selling. Eager to get potential customers on his side, he laced his patter with plenty of jokes to induce laughter and increase chances of a sale. It worked. Perhaps his aborted career in comedy hadn’t been a total waste of time. Soon enough, and for the first time in his life, he had a steady career and a comfortable living.

Still, something didn’t feel right.

Despite his modest comfort and success, Rodney had itchy feet. He could never quite settle into a 9 to 5 life, and comedy was forever at the back of his mind. Later in life he’d compare it to a drug. saying, ‘It was a like a fix, I had to have it.’ For a while, he’d kept himself satisfied by spending evenings after work writing jokes in notebooks. Soon enough, he was going to clubs again to watch the stand-ups, occasionally even getting up to tell a couple of gags himself. Once again, he experienced that magical feeling of making people laugh. Perhaps, he thought as the years wore on, the old days weren’t as bad as he remembered. Maybe, if he’d just stuck at it his career a while longer, he might have made it as a comic.

That feeling grew until he could resist no longer. As the 50s gave way to the 1960s, Rodney let his wife know he intended to relaunch his comedy career. Joyce was distraught. Surely this meant a lot of heartbreak and late nights for nothing. She fought the decision, but Rodney was insistent. The marriage, already on the skids, broke down.

Rodney had to start all over again. When he began turning up at comedy clubs to get on the bill, the managers – many of whom remembered him from his failed Jack Roy days – regarded the forty-year old divorcee with horror. What was he thinking? they implored him. Comedy was a young man’s game now. The hot stand-ups today were guys like Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Bill Cosby, all hungry, in their twenties and killing audiences everywhere.

A comeback seemed a remote prospect.

(To be continued…)