Jean CARROLL
Jean Carroll,
A comedian of the 1940s and ’50s whose ready wit, impeccable timing and unorthodox blend of glamour and humor made her one of the first female stars of mainstream stand-up comedy, died at a hospital in White Plains on Jan. 1. She was 98.
A monologist who wrote nearly all her own material, Ms. Carroll found her humor in the stuff of everyday experience: clothing, shopping, social life and family.
“The thing that attracted me to my husband was his pride,” one of her best-known bits went. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him, standing up on a hill, his hair blowing in the breeze — and he too proud to run and get it.”
Ms. Carroll, who began her career as a vaudeville dancer in the 1920s, is widely credited with having blazed the trail for legions of female stand-up comics who came after her, including Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers and Lily Tomlin.
Carroll, born Celine Zeigman in 1911, is one of the last performers of the quickly-vanishing generation of comics who got their start in vaudeville. She started her act in the 1920s with future husband Buddy Howe who, after returning from service in World War II, decided the act was far better off without him and took the role of her manager. Carroll went on to revolutionize the role of women in comedy, standing alone on the stage armed only with her cunning observational humor while most women either played straight “man” to male comics, or took on exaggerated caricatures of female personas.
Her radical approach to comedy landed her an album in 1960 titled Girl in a Hot Steam Bath, her own short-lived television program titled The Jean Carroll Show, and countless appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.