My father was a performer. Between medical school and his job at the Smedly’s Peas canning factory, I’m not sure how he worked in the time to act in productions of a local theater company; I only know that he did. People who knew him in those days have assured me that that they remember him playing a Gravedigger in a production of Hamlet, Petruchio was a role of which he was very proud. I don’t know if he had a Bottom, but I’m sure it was noteworthy too.
His lack of height and crazy red hair would not have won him any roles as a romantic -lead. That didn’t matter to my mother. In the week that followed his death, my mother told me that one night she watched him from the audience and knew that he was the funniest person she’d ever known. That one night, the stage was in London; I think they had one the honor at some festival. She took in that part of his brilliance, and he took her to see “My Fair Lady”, Julie Andrews and all, in the West End. Soon after, Mama took a flight to Paris to see the fiancé who had placed her in my father’s care while he served out his time in the military. On the plane, she realized she was traveling to break up with her fiancé because she was in love with my father.
Daddy’s cousin Patty once told me that she would never forget the Christmas dinner when Daddy jumped up and entertained everyone singing, “You Aint Nothing But a Hound Dog”. The gyrating and pelvic thrusts, he left out nothing. I can’t imagine that his public tea-toteling (secret drunk?) father was too impressed. More than his infamous “Hot Tomato” skit,, the thing that everyone remembers was his “One-Armed Piccalo-Player”. I’d heard Belfast-days friends and our dear neighbors beg him to do it, just one more time.” I saw only its last performance. It was at a 1989 New Year’s Eve Party around 2 am, and I was twenty. My oldest friend also saw it and told me she’d never again be able to look my father in the eye
“The One-Armed Piccalo-Player,” began with a talent agent finding a well-dressed one-armed man man in his office saying could give a truly unique performance. Saying that my father’s “act” involved him simulating masturbating with one hand down his pants while he hummed a classical aire gives my reader no idea how funny it really was.
Only after “The Aristocrats,” the documentary about the joke that all comedians tell only in front of their peers, could I explain it. “My father had his own version of ‘The Aristocrats” , is all I need to say. Some people look at me blankly, some people don’t believe me, and still others are impressed
My parents ‘ little secret was that they shared a gently obscene sense of humor. They had unusual British accents and Daddy had a medical degree, they must be refined. All the same, they brought my brother and I to “Blazing Saddles” when I was in the 1st Grade, making it clear that I wasn’t to repeat the jokes at school. To us, Mel Brooks was a legendary genius whom my father spoke of reverently, calling him “El Gross-o”
One night last year, while Emma was spending the night with her Nana Benda, we watched “Blazing Saddles” with Liam, telling him that he could see it, but that there were a lot of words and jokes in it that he should not repeat. To Liam, one of the funniest scenes in the movie is comes when a stage full of dancing boys camp it up with a dance number called “The French Mistake.” Even after the three of us had sung and danced our way through it, we said to Liam, “please don’t go around to people’s houses teaching it to the kids. We think it’s funny, but not everyone does”.
Emma’s teachers have asked me when Emma developed her sense of humor. She laughs at the funny bits in books that most of the class don’t seem to understand. This makes her, we’re told, advanced. She’s yet to see the work of “El Gross-o” , but she has seen some pretty funny movies. She loved “Some Like it Hot”.
Youtube has been a great tool in our efforts to pass along the Campbell family sense of humor. With a few clicks, I can bring forth bits from Monty Python. Some months ago, I found a Marty Feldman piece in which he brings a wicker basket containing his ailing pet monster to the vet. Liam has already shown it to his friends, and Emma begs to see “the man with the monster in the basket” when she returns from Preschool. My father loved Marty Feldman, and I can imagine the smile this would bring him.
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