Harvey Korman 1927-2008

Harvey Korman-from IMDB.com

 

Born Harvey Herschel Korman, February 15, 2008, he was one of the funniest comedic actors who ever lived.

I have very vivid memories of my childhood, watching the Carol Burnett show. (I have vivid memories of watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, James Burke’s Connections andMonty Python’s Flying Circus too but that’ll have to be a different post.)

I even did a biographical report on Carol Burnett sometime in 4th grade – complete with sock puppets. I picked Carol because I was a girl and she was a girl.  But mostly I think because my library didn’t have a book on Harvey Korman.

I’m sure that sounds odd, but I think it’s indicitive of the lack of public recognition Harvey got for the quality of the work he did. There was a reason Mel Brooks (the best comedy director ever) used him in his movies. He knew. I mean come on, can you imagine anyone else pulling off Hedley Lamarr? Count de Monet?

The thing about Harvey was that he made the perfect straight man – but one you couldn’t take seriously. He could pull off the lines and almost make you feel like he meant it – like he was playing the character totally straight and might well have been the guy who didn’t get the joke…

…until suddenly, almost without warning, he DID get the joke.  THAT was the best part about the Carol Burnett show — you saw Harvey come into a skit and you waited for him to break up.  It was sometimes kind of disappointing when he didn’t.

Give him credit – it didn’t happen all the time.  It probably didn’t even happen as often as anyone thinks it did because the clips we always see from the show are the best of the best, and god help a man who could keep a straight face trying to play through those.

The really beautiful moments were when Tim Conway especially, but Carol as well, would see Harvey juststart to crack.  And you could watch them take whatever character they were playing and push it out as far as it could possibly go. And the further they went, the more strained Harvey’s seams would come – and the audience’s with it. I think that’s why it happened. You see Harvey begin to lose it, and you know whatever it is you’re doing is working.  So you keep working that path and working that path as long as you’re getting the feedback.

I think Tim was particularly susceptible to this sort of feedback loop.  His job was to come out onto the stage and be funny. And he’s the kind of guy (not unlike the class clown) who as soon as he got a whiff that he was getting a laugh was absolutely not going to stop what he was doing until he a) ran out of material or b) it stopped working.  

And the class clown doesn’t care who he takes down with him, as long as people are laughing.

In my mind, that’s what separated the “Carol breaks up Harvey” from the “Tim breaks up Harvey” bits; Carol would absolutely work it to her advantage and take her characters to the edge (who can forget the Gone with the Wind parody?).  But she was much more “professional” to the degree that she seemed much more sympathetic of her fellow actor out there on the stage absolutely unable to keep it together.  Tim, on the other hand, had no mercy.  And it was brilliant.

That’s, I think, why Dick van Dyke did not succeed on the Carol Burnett show when Harvey left.  Dick van Dyke is also another brilliant comedic actor but he didn’t have that very “human” quality of not quite being able to hold it together in the face of something very very funny. Dick was funny and played his characters fine and the chemistry on the show worked well enough.  But there wasn’t anyone there for me to identify with.

I think maybe that’s what was his draw – he was brilliant because he was one of us.  I could identify with the guy who went out onto the stage with all intentions of playing the skit as rehearsed and making the audience laugh, then moving onto the next one.  But then…something funny happened and, well, it all went “poof.” 

Plus, my first name is Bronwyn. I get sick kind of amusement out of watching someone on a movie have to correct the pronunciation of their name the whole way through it.

I guess I’m sorry that I don’t have more memories of Harvey’s other work. Of course I’ve seen Blazing Saddles and of course I’ve seen History of the World Part I and most of the Pink Panther movies. I even remember the F-Troop episode he was on. But if you look at the sheer quantity of his work (please visit IMDB.com) you begin to understand that while maybe he didn’t always get the credit or recognition he so richly deserved, he got to work his whole life, doing something he so clearly loved. As a performer, that means his peers recognized his talent and worth and snatched him up at every opportunity. That’s sayin’ something.

Anyway Harvey – thank you so much for your life and your work. And for making us laugh.