Larry David and Richard Pryor would be nothing without this comedy club
One night in the early ’70s, a singer named Betty Rhodes was performing at the New York Improv on West 44th Street, which then featured comedians and singers. Richard Pryor was there, and as Rhodes sang, he called over a waitress he knew named Liz Torres and said, “Watch this.”
He went to the bathroom and emerged minutes later completely naked but for his shoes and a tie. “He walked up onto the stage, [and stood] right in front of her for about a minute before going back into the men’s room, getting dressed and returning to the bar to finish his drink,” Torres later revealed. “Here’s the amazing part — the singer continued her song as if nothing happened. She didn’t blink.”
That was just another night at the city’s most seminal comedy club, as detailed in the new book “The Improv: An Oral History of The Comedy Club That Revolutionized Stand-Up” (BenBella Books) by Budd Friedman with Tripp Whetsell.
The Improvisation, as it was then called, opened in February 1963. Initially a place where Broadway performers could unwind and sing for friends after shows, comedians quickly became part of the mix, and it eventually became the first club in the world solely dedicated to stand-up comedy.
The list of comedians discovered or nurtured there (and at its LA branch, which opened in 1975) is a who’s who of the art form, including Pryor, Robert Klein, Richard Lewis, Jay Leno, Andy Kaufman, Rodney Dangerfield and Larry David, to name just a few.
Pryor began performing there in 1964 and continued dropping by into the ’70s, at the height of his fame. Improv comedians and customers got to see him at his most outrageous, and his most introspective.
One quiet night at the club, Torres, also a singer and comedian, was performing, while Pryor, at a table in the audience, had his head down, writing in a notebook. Club founder Friedman (who co-authored this book) asked Pryor to go on, and he agreed.
When he hit the stage, he told the few people there, “Tonight, I’m going to recite some poetry.” He opened the notebook, and, according to Torres, “started reciting the most incredible romantic poetry I ever heard . . . [It was] on a level with Byron or Keats. He didn’t pause or hesitate for a second.”
This went on for almost 20 minutes. When Pryor left the stage, he went to the bar, leaving his notebook on a table. Torres dashed over to see what he had written. The pages were blank.
Dangerfield debuted at the club in 1966, and over the years Improv comics got a bird’s-eye view of his openly debauched lifestyle.
A pre-fame Larry David… performed at The Improv, where his famously awkward nature was always on show.
Joe Piscopo recalls Dangerfield pulling up to the club “in this old Buick Electra,” which “was like a Cheech and Chong movie with all of the weed smoke coming out.” The comedy legend once showed up to the LA club blitzed, in his pajamas — he wasn’t allowed to take the stage that night — and visitors to his own club (Dangerfield’s, on First Avenue in Manhattan) often joined him in the basement for 3-inch-long rails of cocaine.
Comedian Robert Wuhl recalls meeting Dangerfield for the first time at his club, hoping to sell him some jokes. He knocked on the door to Dangerfield’s office, heard “come on in,” and went inside.
“He’s standing there in front of the sink,” Wuhl recalls in the book, “and he’s wearing a bathrobe that’s wide open and he’s taking a leak. His d–k is on full display.” Still, Wuhl read him some jokes as he did his business and became a regular writer for him.
A pre-fame Larry David also performed at The Improv, where his famously awkward nature was always on show.
In the book, Billy Crystal recalls a night at the LA club in the late ’70s. David was getting ready to go on when a woman said hello to him. What happened next sounds like a scene straight out of David’s curmudgeonly HBO hit, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“All of a sudden, Larry got this panicked look on his face,” Crystal recalled. “He said, ‘Oh God, that’s my cousin, Billy. I can’t go on. She’s my cousin and I can’t stand her.’ ”
Friedman told him he was on next, and David took the stage. He didn’t stay there long.
“As soon as he picked up the mic,” Crystal said, “the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘I can’t do this, Budd. Take me off.’ He was onstage for maybe 30 seconds, and it was hilarious. He just didn’t like this relative.”
In 1982, Friedman launched a popular syndicated television show called “An Evening at the Improv,” which ran until 1996, and began opening Improvs around the country in 1985. The New York club closed in 1992, but today there are 22 independent Improv franchises in the US.
While the Improv might not convey the sense of wonder it once did, comedy’s superstars cherish the role it played in modern stand-up, and the fun they had along the way. “Being at the Improv was like being at a big party every night,” Leno writes in the book’s foreword, “where you never knew who might show up.”