Sam Kinison


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Sam Kinison
Sam Kinison on the cover of Rolling Stone
Sam Kinison on the cover of Rolling Stone
Born December 8, 1953(1953-12-08)
Yakima, Washington, U.S.
Died April 10, 1992 (aged 38)
Needles, California, U.S.
Medium stand-up, television, music
Nationality American
Years active 1978-1992
Genres Black comedy, Satire, Observational comedy, Insult comedy
Subject(s) human sexuality, current events, American politics, pop culture, religion
Influences Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor
Influenced Bill Hicks, Jeff Duran, Chris Rock, Jim Carrey, Joe Rogan, Tom Rhodes, Dez Reed
Website SamKinison.org

Samuel "Sam" Burl Kinison (December 8, 1953 – April 10, 1992) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Kinison was famous for his extremely vitriolic humor. A former revival-style preacher, his standup routines were most often characterized by intense, angry ranting and punctuated by his trademark ("primal") scream.

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Early life

Born in Yakima, Washington, Kinison was the son of a Pentecostal preacher. His father pastored several churches around the country, receiving little income. Sam later attended high school in East Peoria, Illinois. He also lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a while with his parents. His father is deceased, but his mother still lives in Tulsa. He followed in his father's footsteps, as he was originally a pentecostal preacher before becoming a comedian. Recordings of his sermons reveal that he used a "fire and brimstone" style, punctuated with shouts similar to the ones he would later use in his stand-up routines. He attended Pinecrest Bible Training Center in Salisbury Center, New York[1]. He was forced to leave preaching when he divorced his first wife, at which time he took up comedy.

Career

Kinison's appearance on HBO's Rodney Dangerfield's Ninth Annual Young Comedians Special in the summer of 1984 is widely considered to be his breakthrough performance. Later, during Kinison's appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, David Letterman's introduction of Kinison would prove to be prescient: "Brace yourselves. I'm not kidding. Please welcome Sam Kinison."

Kinison played on his former role as a Bible preaching evangelist, taking satirical and sacrilegious shots at Christianity and famous Christian evangelist scandals of his day. Though he himself was a former preacher, his daring comedy - aimed at the church, Christianity and the Bible - helped shoot him to stardom. On several video tapes of his stand up comedy, a shot of his personalized license plate reveals the words "EX REV," a play-on term standing for "ex reverend."

Kinison was associated with the Los Angeles rock music scene and was occasionally accompanied by a touring band. He also gained a reputation as having a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol[citation needed].

In 1988, he recorded a novelty version of The Troggs' "Wild Thing." The record didn't make the Billboard Hot 100, but the video was a hit on MTV, featuring cameos from Rodney Dangerfield as well as many well-known rock musicians including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith, Slash, Billy Idol, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa, Richie Sambora, and Tommy Lee, and a raunchy "roll on the mat" dance with Jessica Hahn. In the video, Kinison played a custom Stratocaster, with an airbrushed picture of his face frozen in his famous scream.

During one notable The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson performance, he delivered what began as a straightforward version of Elvis Presley's Are You Lonesome Tonight which descended into angry ranting during the spoken breakdown, segueing back into a straightforward sung ending.

Some of Kinison's most spontaneous moments came during his frequent appearances on The Howard Stern Show. He made an angry phone call on-air to Bobcat Goldthwait, and he embarrassed comedienne Judy Tenuta to the point of driving her off the show. His most notorious stunt resulted in a highly entertaining on-air feud with Stern: he made an on-air promise to bring to the show members of the band Bon Jovi, with whom Stern was feuding, but they never showed up. Stern's reaction was swift and vindictive, and Kinison eventually apologized, but not before comedian Gilbert Gottfried and Stern savaged an emotionally-charged phone call between Stern and Kinison, in which both stars used the words "man" and "dude" with each other so often that Gottfried and Stern went into stitches on hearing the playback.

Stern and Kinison eventually made up and paired on Stern's pay-per-view special, U.S. Open Sores. In the mid-1990s, Stern purchased the movie rights to Kinison's biography Brother Sam, written by his brother Bill, but later revealed on the air that "no studio was interested in financing the movie," partially because of the comedian's controversial nature, and partially because the story had such a tragic ending. In November 2008, Variety reported[2] that HBO would make Brother Sam with Kinison being played by Dan Fogler.

In 1991, Kinison starred in the Fox Network TV show Charlie Hoover, in which he played the inner voice of the title character, appearing as a 12" man. The show lasted only 7 episodes before being canceled.

Death

Six days after he married his girlfriend Malika Souiri, Sam Kinison was killed when his white 1989 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am was struck on U.S. Route 95 four miles north of Interstate 40 and several miles west of Needles, California by a pickup truck driven by a 17-year-old who had been drinking. [3] [4] His wife survived the accident. Kinison was later found to have traces of cocaine, prescription tranquilizers, and codeine in his bloodstream. [5]

Kinison is interred with family members at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His grave marker gives his full name, his date of birth and death, and an unattributed quote, "In another time and place he would have been called prophet."

Trivia

 Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (June 2008)

Discography

Filmography

TV work

  • Rodney Dangerfield: It's Not Easy Bein' Me (1986)


References

  1. ^ http://www.megiloth.com/thoughts_and_opinions/social_commentary/samkinison.htm
  2. ^ Brother Sam set for HBO
  3. ^ "Sam Kinison, 38, Comedian, Dies; Wife Injured in Head-On Collision", New York Times, April 12, 1992
  4. ^ "Teen in Crash Used Alcohol, CHP Says", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1992
  5. ^ "Tranquilizers, Cocaine Found in Kinison's System", Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1992

External links

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