TORONTO – Winnipeg-raised comedy veteran David Steinberg has always held fast to his values, refusing to change his Jewish surname and sticking by his controversial sermon-style standup act, even when it resulted in the cancellation of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.”
The 70-year-old Emmy Award winner is profiled in Barry Avrich’s new film “Quality Balls — the David Steinberg Story,” which opens at Toronto’s Bloor Hot Docs Cinema on Friday and airs on HBO Canada and Movie Central on Saturday. He recently sat down with The Canadian Press to talk about the film.
CP: It seems you never had to change who you were throughout your career — is that a rarity in the comedy world?
DS: In those days it was. You’ve got to remember, the comedians before me — Buddy Hackett and George Burns, Milton Berle — they were all Jewish comedians and they couldn’t even keep their names because you just weren’t allowed to be that ethnic. … When I came out of Second City and people started to notice me and I was on Broadway and started to get crowds coming to see me, the agents came around and said, ‘Steinberg? There is no Steinberg who has a television show. You have to change your name,’ and I thought, ‘That’s ridiculous, I’m not going to do that,’ and they said, ‘Well, OK, you’re limiting your career.’ I thought, ‘What’s the point in my career if I have to be somebody else to start with?’ So that wasn’t difficult for me, that’s just who I was.
CP: There’s a standup bit in the film in which you tell the audience that your parents immigrated from Russia and wound up “in a worse place — Winnipeg.” But you must have a real reverence for the city.
DS: Winnipeg is an amazing place. It doesn’t look like much, it’s cold, as everyone knows, and in the summer the mosquitoes are as large as can be. But it was a great place to grow up, especially in the ’50s. Radio was incredible in Canada, so I was listening to stories that I could create pictures of in my own mind, and that, very frankly, became my standup technique. Every piece of material I had, I created a picture that the audience could see, because that’s what I grew up listening to, and that was my idea of great storytelling.
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CP: It’s interesting how your pathway into the entertainment world came when you followed a group of girls into a drama class at the University of Chicago.
DS: I was just an adolescent, hormones raging, and I was interested in girls. I didn’t know if they were interested in me but they led me to the University of Chicago theatre and then I met the head of the theatre. But I could talk. I was in the coffee shop at the University of Chicago every morning, whatever was going on, I would talk about it. I had never seen a comedian, I hadn’t seen any plays at that point. … When I got to the theatre and I started to talk that way, one of the theatre guys was from Second City and he said, ‘You’re made for Second City,’ … and that’s how it all started.
CP: And that’s where you started to do your satirical sermons.
DS: I did a lot of characters at Second City but the sermons seemed to strike a chord. They were very original. To be doing anything on the Bible and especially religion in those days, it was bold. I didn’t think of it as bold, I just thought, ‘This is something I know, I’m just going to trade in on it.’ And then when I started to do standup, you need to have something to start with, you have to have a way to talk to the audience, and I at least had these sermons … where you could give me any suggestion of the Old Testament and I sort of knew it, because that was my background. And from there I started to find a little bit of a story … and before long I had an act.
CP: “The Tonight Show” is a big component of this film, as is your friendship with Johnny Carson. You were on his show the second-most amount of times, next to Bob Hope. As the appearances racked up, did you get a sense of what it was doing for your career?
DS: I didn’t have a sense that I was collecting a kind of material that would be remembered or anything like that, but I did love doing ‘The Tonight Show’ because I did have that Second City background. Johnny could call me in the last minute so I could be on with him and he shared in what I did as much as I did. I would throw up a subject, we would both go at it together, and he was an incredible comedian, not just a listening host. … We were good friends, we laughed at the same things, we read the same things, and he was a sort of mentor of mine.
CP: What do you make of the late-night landscape today?
DS: “The Tonight Show” and Letterman and all of that, it’s different because there are so many late-night shows that you don’t have the tension or you don’t see that special guest that you don’t get to see anywhere else, because when you’re promoting something you go on all the shows. So it sort of diminishes from what it was with only three networks to start with, and even when there was cable, Johnny still sort of ruled. It has sort of levelled out. I think they’re all good hosts in their own way.
CP: What do you think of Jay Leno’s term ending and “The Tonight Show” going to New York City?
DS: I think going back to New York is a good idea, actually, because New York is lively and it’s a different atmosphere. L.A. is a little more laid back and you have Craig Ferguson and you have Jimmy Kimmel, you have a lot of shows in L.A. I think it’s a good idea.
CP: Jerry Seinfeld is also featured in this film, asking you about returning to standup, and we see you doing a standup special throughout the film. Is returning to standup something that you’re thinking of?
DS: Yeah, I worked out for a week in La Jolla Playhouse, which is sort of a well-known way in which to go to Broadway. … I’m sort of challenging myself by doing it. I don’t do standup, I never did jokey standup, so it’s just sort of storytelling. … So I’m exploring being onstage again.
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Answers have been edited and condensed.
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