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| notable_work = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl (born May 11, 1927) is a Canadian-born American comedian and social satirist, considered to be the first modern stand-up comedian since Will Rogers, a humorist in the early 20th century. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire which pokes fun at political and current event topics using improvised monologues and only a newspaper as a prop. Sahl spent his early years in Los Angeles and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he made his professional stage debut at the hungry i nightclub in 1953. His popularity grew quickly, and after a year at the club he traveled the country doing shows at established nightclubs, theaters and college campuses. In 1960 he became the first comedian to have a cover story written about them by ''Time'' magazine. He appeared on various television shows, played a number of film roles, and performed a one-man show on Broadway. Television host Steve Allen claimed that Sahl was "the only real political philosopher we have in modern comedy." His social satire performances broke new ground in live entertainment, as a stand-up comic talking about the real world of politics at that time was considered "revolutionary." It inspired many later comics to become stage comedians, including Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters and Woody Allen. Allen credits Sahl's new style of humor with "opening up vistas for people like me." Numerous politicians became his fans, with John F. Kennedy asking him to write his jokes for campaign speeches. After Kennedy's assassination in 1963, however, Sahl became obsessed with what he saw as the Warren Report's inaccuracy and conclusions, and spoke about it often during his shows. This alienated much of his audience and led to a decline in his popularity for the remainder of the 1960s. By the 1970s, however, his shows and popularity staged a partial comeback which continues to the present. ==Early life== Sahl was born on May 11, 1927 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada,〔 the only child of Jewish parents. His father, Harry Sahl, came from an immigrant family on New York's Lower East Side, and hoped to become a Broadway playwright. He met his wife when she responded to an advertisement he took out in a poetry magazine. Unable to break into the writing field they moved to Canada where he owned a tobacco store in Montreal.〔''Time'' magazine, August 15, 1960 pp. 44-48〕 The family later relocated to Los Angeles, California where his father, unable to become a Hollywood writer, worked as a clerk and court reporter for the FBI. Sahl notes, "My dad was disappointed in his dreams and he distrusted that world for me."〔 Sahl went to Belmont High School in Los Angeles where he also wrote for the school's newspaper. Actor Richard Crenna was one of his classmates.〔 When the U.S. entered World War II after Pearl Harbor, Sahl, then fourteen, joined the school's Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). He won a medal for marksmanship and an American Legion Americanism award.〔 Wanting to express his patriotism, he wore his ROTC uniform to school and in public,〔 and when he turned fifteen, he dropped out of high school to join the Army by lying about his age.〔 His mother tracked him down and brought him back home two weeks later after she revealed his true age.〔 Upon graduating from high school, his father tried to get him into West Point and had received his Congressman's help.〔 But Sahl had by then already enlisted in the United States Air Force. He was later stationed in Alaska with the 93rd Air Depot Group. In the military, however, he resisted the discipline and authoritarian control it had over his life. He expressed his nonconformity by growing a beard and refusing to wear a cap, as required. He also wrote articles for a small newspaper criticizing the military, which resulted in his being penalized with three months of KP duty.〔 He was discharged in 1947 and enrolled in Compton College, followed by the University of Southern California. He received a B.S. degree in 1950 with majors in traffic engineering and city management.〔〔 He continued with the masters program but dropped out to become an actor and playwright.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mort Sahl」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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