Did Lenny Bruce Really Do Stand-Up Right After JFK Was Shot?

One curious tale from the history of stand-up comedy — that in no way involves Milton Berle’s prodigious johnson — is the story of how Lenny Bruce responded to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. 

As legend would have it, Bruce performed a scheduled stand-up set on November 22, 1963, mere hours after JFK was fatally shot in Dallas. When he took the stage, Bruce just stood in the spotlight for a few seconds, the room silent with tension and apprehension. What would the controversial comedian say? 

“Well, Vaughn Meader is fucked!” Bruce finally quipped, referring to the nightclub comic who became a national sensation purely due to his Kennedy impersonation — and who really did turn out to be fucked, by the way.

This story has been recounted by everyone from Marc Maron, to former Howard Stern sidekick Jackie Martling, to whoever runs LennyBruce.org, the “official website of Lenny Bruce.” 

But is it actually true?

The biggest red flag is the detail that Bruce performed stand-up comedy on the same day that Kennedy was killed. Famously, “most businesses and schools abruptly closed” following the tragedy. Even the New York Stock Exchange shut down. The suggestion that a comedy club would stay open, and somehow still attract a crowd of people willing to watch a stand-up show, seems pretty hard to swallow.

There are also inconsistencies in the various stories. One Bruce biography claimed that his opening joke had nothing to do with Meader, suggesting that he went with the far more incendiary line: “Don’t shoot!”

The most detailed account of this show can be found in the book Ladies and Gentlemen — Lenny Bruce!! by Albert Goldman. First of all, it happened on November 30, 1963, a full eight days after the assassination, which makes a lot more sense. 

Even then, things were extremely tense. Bruce was worried that he, too, might be assassinated at the show, which might seem paranoid, if not for the fact that the theater had been set ablaze by arsonists just a few nights before Bruce was scheduled to headline the theater’s debut performance. Bruce speculated that the perpetrators may have been “homicidal Catholic maniacs” who blamed him and his influence for Kennedy’s death. 

Bruce wasn’t the only performer that night, the opening act was Cuban percussionist Mongo Santamaria.

When Bruce eventually took the stage, some audience members were “worried how Lenny would treat the subject of the assassination.” But he had no intention of talking about Kennedy, or making light of his death. Instead he came up with a line that allowed him to confront the elephant in the room, while also sidestepping the assassination completely. After a few moments of standing silently, and appearing to be in “deep reflection,” Bruce whistled, then spoke softly “Wow! Boy! Sssssss! Poor Vaughn Meader.” 

The theater “erupted in laughter and then applause.” Note that Bruce didn’t drop an F-bomb, as some have claimed. He underplayed the moment, ramping up to the punchline with a tender sensitivity that was really laser-focused misdirection. This account of Bruce’s phrasing was backed up by British comedian Jonathan Miller of Beyond the Fringe fame, who was in the audience that night.

After giving the tense crowd a cathartic release, Bruce went on to perform a set that, per Goldman, wasn’t exactly his best. For the second show of the evening, he tried out some other bits related to the grim news of the day, even joking about Lee Harvey Oswald’s name: “Oswald is the name of a rabbit!” 

Amazingly, while there’s been a lot of misinformation about this one show circulating the internet, it was actually taped, and an audio recording of Bruce’s 1963 set is seemingly available through the Columbia University library. 

Finally, college tuition pays off!

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