Memories of Myron Cohen
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- August
- 9
So there I was, sitting in traffic because of an accident and listening to a comedy channel on satellite radio, when who pops up but Myron Cohen.
Cohen, who lived in New City until his death in 1986, was the leader of a pack of Borscht Belt comics from Rockland who made their living at the resorts in the heyday of the Catskills. Of course there was Vegas and later Atlantic City, but when Freddie Roman, Lenny Rush, Vic Arnell, Morty Gunty and Myron Cohen played the Catskills, they were commuters.
Cohen broke into comedy when his customers at haberdashery shops made it clear his talent wasn’t in selling men’s clothes.
He was a fixture on the Ed Sullivan Show and after spending each morning in his office in Manhattan, at a table at the rear of the old Maxi City Deli in New City.
The master of dialect jokes was so gracious that if you walked in and he knew you—and maybe even if he didn’t—you were invited to join him for a late lunch.
Myron is worth a full column some one of these days, but for now, it was good to hear his perfect pronunciation, mellow tones and flawless timing again.
He told five minutes of jokes about old Jewish men and women living out their somewhat tarnished golden years in Miami.
If only for five minutes or so, it was good to have him back.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 6:41 pm by Bob Baird.
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