MY BROTHER TELLS ME that the old-fashioned, post-WWII musical sex comedienne (what she called herself) Rusty Warren died last week at the age of 91. I wasn't a particular fan of her material which was pretty stupid and crude, which, ironically, depended on one thing and one thing alone, people being embarrassed enough about sex to laugh at someone talking about it in public. One of the obits I read out of mild curiosity said she was called "the mother of the sexual revolution" though what she perhaps mothered was the replacement of comedy by stuff that got laughs by merely causing embarrassment in audiences too drunk or stupid to understand the difference between that and what was funny. I was introduced to Rusty Warren's act when a young woman I was friends with brought a couple of her LPs over in a "you won't believe what my father listens to" demonstration. My brother was there at the time. We listened to them once, I didn't need to hear them again. It already seemed old-fashioned to me in the late 1960s, cutting edges of a decade before become rapidly blunt. She seems to have understood her career better than a lot do, including what developed from her kind of material.
SHECKY!: When you look back at the material you were doing in the early 1960's, does it seem tame compared to the material many female comics are doing today?
RUSTY: I don't know if I'd consider the material tame or not. You have to realize that we spoke differently in the '60s. We veiled a lot of what we were saying and how we were saying it. But it was SEX just the same. Ours was more innuendo than the realistic way it's talked about on stage today. And the female commediennes today are coming right out and saying what they want to say and don't have to worry about being censored.
SHECKY!: Do you pay attention to the current comedy scene? If so, what do you like, what don't you like?
RUSTY: Not really. Occasionally I have run into some of the current comics, as I did at the Improv on the night I was presented the award. And I found some of the less experienced guys falling back on the "When you can't say anything funny, say F***" syndrome. Most of the more experienced guys had a set-up, middle and end to whatever they were trying to get across. I don't like angry comics, violence against women comedy or unnecessary vulgarity in their so-called humor.
SHECKY!: Since you had a reputation as a bawdy comedian, was it difficult for you to get booked on television?
RUSTY: Yes it was. I was asked to do the daytime shows when I was in the cities that had them, to promote my current place of engagement, like Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett, but never worked Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson.
SHECKY!: How do you react to this idea that it is easier to write a dirty joke than a clean one?
RUSTY: It probably is easier. Thank God I never had to write a CLEAN ONE!!
Yeah, that's what I guessed about it, most alleged comedy takes the easy way out. Earlier in the interview she said that Sophie Tucker advised her never to lie to the audience because they were smarter than you'd think. Maybe that was true then, it's not true of the comedy audiences now. They'll laugh stupidly at anything. They've been well trained to accept nothing by comedians and the entertainment industry.
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