Lenny Bruce

About Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was also controversial, eventually leading to the first posthumous pardon in New York history.

Leonard Alfred Schneider was born in Mineola, New York, grew up in nearby Bellmore and attended Wellington C. Mepham High School. His youth was chaotic; his parents divorced when he was five years old and Lenny moved in with various relatives over the next decade. His mother, Sally Marr (née Sadie Kitchenberg), was a stage performer who had an enormous influence on Bruce's career. After spending time working on a farm with a family that provided the stable surroundings he needed, he joined the United States Navy at the age of 17 in 1942, and saw active duty in Europe until his discharge in 1946.

In 1947, soon after changing his last name to Bruce, he earned $12 (equivalent to $116 in 2008) and a free spaghetti dinner for his first stand-up performance in Brooklyn, New York. From that modest start, he got his first break as a guest (and introduced by his mother, who called herself "Sally Bruce") on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts Show, doing a "Bavarian mimic" of American movie stars (e.g., Humphrey Bogart).