Jackie Mason
| Jackie Mason | |
|---|---|
Mason in 2006
|
|
| Birth name | Yacov Moshe Maza |
| Born |
June 9, 1931 Sheboygan, Wisconsin, United States |
| Medium |
Stand-up Television Film Radio |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | City College of New York (B.A.) |
| Years active | late 1950s–present |
| Genres |
Political satire Observational comedy Improvisational comedy |
| Subject(s) |
American politics International relations Current events Race relations Antisemitism Jewish culture American culture |
| Spouse | Jyll Rosenfeld (1991–present) |
| Notable works and roles | The World According to Me and Jackie Mason on Broadway |
| Website | Jackie Mason website |
Jackie Mason (born June 9, 1931) is an American stand-up comedian and film and television actor. He is ranked #63 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all-time.
His 1986 one-man show The World According to Me won a Special Tony Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, an Ace Award, an Emmy Award, and a Grammy nomination. Later, his 1988 special "Jackie Mason on Broadway" won another Emmy Award (for outstanding writing) and another Ace Award, and his 1992 voice-over of Rabbi Hyman Krustofski in The Simpsons episode "Like Father, Like Clown" won Mason a third Emmy Award. He has written and performed in six one-man shows on Broadway.
Known for his delivery and voice, as well as his use of innuendo and pun, Mason's often-culturally-grounded humor has been described as irreverent and sometimes politically incorrect. A critic for Time wrote that he spoke to audiences: "with the Yiddish locutions of an immigrant who just completed a course in English. By mail."
He was born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the fourth and last son (and first one born in the United States) in a family of six children in a strictly Orthodox Jewish family. Mason came from a long line of rabbis, which included his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and his great-great grandfather.
His father Eli and his mother had both been born in Minsk, and had emigrated to the US in the 1920s with the rest of Mason's family from Minsk; his father died in 1959. A Jewish refugee organization helped his father find a position in Sheboygan, as it needed a rabbi. When Mason was five years old his family moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, largely so that he and his siblings could pursue a yeshiva education, where he grew up on Henry Street, Rutgers Street, and Norfolk Street. There, his parents and their friends all spoke Yiddish.
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