IN ON THE JOKE

A film critic and bestselling author examines the foundational history of women stand-up comedians in American show business.

Women comics faced an uphill battle throughout most of the 20th century. Levy, author of biographies of Jerry Lewis, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, and others, observes that prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s, women who dared take the stage alone were “expected to be pretty and to sing, maybe dance. If she did comedy at all, it was with a man or as part of an ensemble.” Yet so many of the women he profiles shattered those notions through grit, persistence, and brilliance that could not be denied. Moms Mabley, who began her storied career in the all-Black vaudeville circuit during the years after World War I, broke ground not only by talking frankly about sex and politics, but also for her offstage life as a lesbian. Like Mabley, Jewish comedian Belle Barth also began in vaudeville and built a career around comedic raunchiness. Her unapologetically profane act got her “arrested and fined for public indecency” years before Lenny Bruce became a “First Amendment martyr.” The struggles and triumphs of these early female comedians helped pave the way for later female comedians like Phyllis Diller. The long-suffering wife of a feckless husband, Diller stumbled into stand-up in the 1950s and gradually made a name for herself doing comic takedowns of her own, often troubled, domestic life. Later, she would become the first woman daring enough to breach the male-only precincts of the Friars Club in 1983, dressed as a man, and the first woman to be offered membership in the club three years later. Both thorough and sympathetic, Levy’s work is notable for how it fills gaps in entertainment history, and the author also ably explores social and attitudinal changes that helped women finally be recognized for their contributions to comedy.

A readably informative, well-researched comedic history.