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Grace Kessler Overbeke tells the story of Jean Carroll, the first Jewish woman to become a star in the field we now call stand-up comedy.

Image courtesy of interviewee. September 10, 2024

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This video is a narrative about the life and legacy of Jean Carroll, a pioneering female comedian. The speaker reflects on their upbringing, influenced by comedy-loving parents who named them after the vaudeville comedian. This video background fostered a deep fascination with comedy, particularly the old vaudeville routines that characterized Carroll's time.

The speaker describes their thorough research into Carroll's life, which involved uncovering obscure connections through social media and diving into old newspapers and entertainment periodicals. Carroll, originally named Sadie Zeman, changed her name to pursue a successful career in comedy at a time when women faced significant resistance in the field, often met with skepticism from audiences.

Despite her glamorous persona, Carroll navigated personal struggles, including antisemitism, family issues, and the pressure of economic dependency. She aimed to break the cycle of dependency her mother faced, starting her career in talent shows and eventually evolving into a prominent performer who transformed stand-up comedy by emphasizing personal storytelling over traditional joke-telling.

Carroll’s impact on stand-up comedy and her efforts to redefine Jewish women's representation in media are highlighted, as she rejected stereotypical portrayals and presented a more sophisticated image. She is noted as a masterful storyteller, and the speaker hopes that recognition of her contributions serves as a reminder of the many overlooked stories of women and marginalized individuals in history, encouraging deeper exploration of historically neglected narratives.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I'm gonna blame my parents for this one.

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Uh, my parents were huge comedy nerds

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and to the point that they named me

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after a comedian, Gracie Allen, who was in a comedy du

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with George Burns, and they were vaudeville comedians,

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and they made a radio program.

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They did the whole transition into tv

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and, they would play me these

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Old vaudeville Routines, like as bedtime stories,

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you know, on, on records

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and, cassette tapes at that point. And so I just

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Grew up with this,

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Obsession kind of with comedy from this period.

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Research was most Fun when I got to,

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Sort of follow a little detective

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Trail where there was a friend of a friend

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who knew someone on Facebook.

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And, you know, it led me to these very peculiar places.

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I met, a documentary filmmaker

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who had been making a movie about Gene Carroll.

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Uh, now the movie didn't actually get all the way made, but

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He had all this footage

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Of interviews with her

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that was just sitting in his, in his closet.

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And so he was incredibly generous,

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the wonderful Stephen Silverman.

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Um, I got to meet Jean Carroll's granddaughters, one

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of whom I got to meet in person, the other,

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Through Facebook. It was really

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Kind of a marvelous Detective

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Journey to track down these people who knew her

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and get to talk with them and,

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and get to know her through them.

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In addition to, talking to other people,

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which was my favorite part.

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There was also a tremendous amount of,

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just going through

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Old newspapers,

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Every kind of newspaper. You know, there were

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Old, Jewish newspapers,

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some of which were in Yiddish. There

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Were old, Uh, entertainment periodicals, you know,

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like Variety, which is written for showbiz insiders.

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Uh, and then there were, you know, standard New York Times,

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the Washington Post.

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Um, and just going through every time she was mentioned

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and really looking into how can I put together

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A story of her life From these little,

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Little bits of like what I call literary

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Detritus. Seeing Carol

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Was A figment of the imagination of,

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Sadie Zeman.

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Um, Sadie Zeman was her real name, and,

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or Celine Zeman.

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Sadie was her, her mother's nickname.

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And then when she went into show business, she was told, no,

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no, no, you cannot have a Jewish name.

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That is not going to work. And so she became Jean Carroll.

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And Jean Carroll was a lot of things

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that Sadie Zeman never was.

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Uh, she was Glamorous.

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She was deeply Assimilated American. She

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Was, Um,

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Well, she was college Educated.

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There were a number of times where she would talk about,

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you know, I didn't go to college for this.

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And the truth is, she didn't go to college at all.

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But it was like through this persona of Jean Carroll,

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she got to be the person that she dreamed of being.

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Also on a factual level,

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Jean Carroll was the first woman to do,

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the first Jewish woman somewhat argue, the first woman

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to do standup comedy.

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I mean, she talks about the audience would be very resistant

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to a, a woman doing standup.

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And you see it in so many different ways, right?

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Like you see the audience, she says,

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the men in the audience have their arms crossed,

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and they're looking at you with a sear as if to say,

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why should I listen to you?

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And then she said, sometimes the women in the audience would

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be even more angry,

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because, you know, she said that the women thought, well,

03:49.285 --> 03:50.665
why doesn't my husband listen to me?

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Like he's listening to her?

03:53.795 --> 03:57.175
And, there was also just logistical difficulties.

03:57.415 --> 04:01.655
I mean, trying to have a career in show business while also

04:02.585 --> 04:05.015
being a woman, whether you're on your own

04:05.035 --> 04:07.215
or whether you're taking care of a family, there's

04:08.015 --> 04:10.175
a tremendous amount of difficulty that comes with that.

04:11.115 --> 04:15.495
Um, and then there was the difficulty that she felt

04:16.085 --> 04:19.295
herself of, you know, what am I doing?

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How am I, like, should I really be doing this?

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Is this what I should devote myself to?

04:24.475 --> 04:27.255
She was born in Paris,

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and her, her parents were from Eastern Europe,

04:32.075 --> 04:34.015
but they wound up in Paris

04:34.325 --> 04:36.295
through her father's defection.

04:36.355 --> 04:39.895
He was drafted into the Russian army, but he defected.

04:40.435 --> 04:43.015
And so they, they left,

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they went, they went through Europe.

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At one point, he was put in prison for defecting.

04:47.755 --> 04:52.455
Um, and so she was born, in France,

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sort of on the way out.

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Her father then immigrated to the States, a couple years

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before her mother, so that he could put down roots,

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get some money, and then send money so that his wife

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and kids could, could join him in the States.

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So like a lot of immigrant families, they moved around.

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She finally arrived.

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Uh, she and her mother

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and their siblings arrived at Ellis Island

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when she was two years old.

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And they kind of moved around,

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generally throughout New England.

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But, she finally settled down when she was about eight.

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And one of the things that she learned upon settling down

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was that, there was a lot of antisemitism.

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People were not thrilled at the influx

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of, Jewish immigration.

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So there were kids on the playground

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who would call her names and slurs,

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and, some even tried to attack her.

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Um, so that was a, that was a harsh introduction

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to the world of antisemitism.

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So she was having a hard time, not only at school,

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but also at home because,

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her father struggled a great deal with alcoholism

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and, abusive tendencies.

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He would, he would abuse her mom.

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And she witnessed this happening,

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and it was really traumatizing for her.

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And so she made this pledge to herself,

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I'm never gonna let that happen.

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And she really connected it to economics.

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She felt like the reason

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that her mother couldn't escape from the situation is

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that her mother was financially dependent on her father.

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So she, which is such a, an intense realization for a child,

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but she said, okay, well, if I can make the money, then

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I will not be in the same situation that she is in.

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And if I can make more money than my father,

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then maybe I can support my mom and my siblings,

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and we can get out of his control.

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And she did. But there are very few jobs that,

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children can do.

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Uh, so she started making money by going to these,

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these amateur talent shows with prize money.

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It was sort of like a little, cottage industry.

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A lot of these shows were rigged so that,

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the kids were not so much local kids as paid child actors.

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And she had a role, which, it was called The Lemon Act.

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Basically, it's the person in the talent show who is so

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terrible that people just love to laugh at them.

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And so she had a little income from going

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to these talent shows and being so horribly bad that

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audiences would just crack up.

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And this turned into a career.

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I mean, she became a performer first

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by being laughably bad.

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And then, she got trained.

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She got trained as a dancer, she got trained as a singer.

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She went onto Vaudeville

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and started doing this musical comedy review.

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And eventually she went from being laughably bad

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to laughably.

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Excellent orthopedic style changed over time.

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But what the, what I think is really interesting is the way

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that she changed what we would now call standup comedy,

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to something really personal

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and quite intimate and confessional.

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You know, it used to be that a standup

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comedian would just tell jokes.

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It was like reciting a joke book.

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And for her, she made it far more about storytelling.

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She made it more about speaking about her observations,

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her specific point of view.

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And, you know, she wasn't the only person to do this,

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but it was a really big shift from, you know,

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joke book recitation.

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And this is the thing that at least in my view, is now

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so exciting about standup, is the,

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the personal storytelling.

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Some of the reviews said that it was a little bit jarring

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that, she was being so intimate.

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Um, some critics were very surprised to see

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such a glamorous woman talk with, what they called

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brooklynese, mannerisms.

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Um, I think she was really surprising.

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I mean, taken, if even setting aside the rather

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revolutionary fact that there was a woman doing this new

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genre of standup, which in and of itself was remarkable.

09:44.465 --> 09:47.245
Um, the ways that she was doing it was so remarkable the way

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that she was making it conversational and, and intimate.

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I think that this intimate style became sort of a template

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or certainly, a game changer so

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that when Joan Rivers took up the mantle not too much longer

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after Jean Carroll was performing,

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or when, to fields, I mean, there's, there are so many,

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comedians at this point

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who take up this conversational tone, this performance

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where you sort of treat the audience like they're your best

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friend and you're just chitchatting with them.

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And it influenced, I mean, women, men,

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non-binary comedians today, it's,

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this is the new norm for standup.

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She had a very clear idea of, of

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what she called dignity,

10:41.215 --> 10:44.485
and she felt that,

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it was undignified for women to,

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lose their femininity

10:52.545 --> 10:56.835
or to make a mockery

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of themselves, or to

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do too much broad physical humor.

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She was really insistent on reimagining

11:07.315 --> 11:09.005
what Jewish women were like.

11:09.265 --> 11:13.085
And specifically she was interested in changing the way that

11:13.745 --> 11:16.645
the media represented Jewish women.

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There were lots of wonderful Jewish women entertainers.

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Uh, Fannie Brice is incredible.

11:24.185 --> 11:25.535
Molly Berg, it was incredible.

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But a lot of the Jewish women prominent, comedians

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would sort of make their Jewishness into a punchline.

11:36.475 --> 11:40.255
It was, it was sort of like, minstrelsy, you know,

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they would lean really heavily into dialect

11:43.275 --> 11:46.215
and cartoonish kind of movements.

11:47.515 --> 11:50.055
And Jean Carroll refused to do that.

11:50.635 --> 11:55.365
She really made a case for Jewish women comedians

11:56.305 --> 12:00.535
as elegant, as sophisticated, as

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assimilated, first and foremost.

12:03.925 --> 12:08.085
I hope that they take away, a good story.

12:08.925 --> 12:13.865
I mean, Jim Carroll comedians are storytellers,

12:13.885 --> 12:16.945
and Jean Carroll in particular was just a masterful

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raconteur of a storyteller.

12:20.085 --> 12:23.425
And so I truly hope that,

12:23.575 --> 12:27.345
that readers get even a morsel from the book of

12:27.775 --> 12:31.585
what it was like to to hear Jean Carroll telling her story.

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Also, I'm hoping that the book could be a good example of,

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you know, what is lost when you only look at history

12:40.605 --> 12:42.705
as being stories from men.

12:43.635 --> 12:46.985
There are so many overlooked stories of women

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in every field of people of color, of people

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who have been marginalized, and it's such a great loss.

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So maybe this book can be a reminder for folks to, to

13:00.835 --> 13:02.705
check these nooks and crannies of history

13:02.725 --> 13:06.305
and find the stories that are just waiting to be unearthed

13:06.325 --> 13:06.785
and celebr.

"The Legacy of Laughter: Tracing the Journey of Jean Carroll and the Impact of Comedy"

00:00:00 - I'm gonna blame my parents for this one. my parents were huge comedy nerds and to the point that they named me after a comedian, Gracie Allen, who was in a comedy du with George Burns, and they were vaudeville comedians, and they made a radio program. They did the whole transition into tv and, they would play me these Old vaudeville Routines, like as bedtime stories, you know, on, on records and, cassette tapes at that point. And so I just Grew up with this, Obsession kind of with comedy from this period. Research was most Fun when I got to, Sort of follow a little detective Trail where there was a friend of a friend
00:00:42 - And, you know, it led me to these very peculiar places. I met, a documentary filmmaker who had been making a movie about Gene Carroll. now the movie didn't actually get all the way made, but He had all this footage Of interviews with her that was just sitting in his, in his closet. And so he was incredibly generous, the wonderful Stephen Silverman. I got to meet Jean Carroll's granddaughters, one of whom I got to meet in person, the other, Through Facebook. It was really Kind of a marvelous Detective Journey to track down these people who knew her
00:01:24 - and get to know her through them. In addition to, talking to other people, which was my favorite part. There was also a tremendous amount of, just going through Old newspapers, Every kind of newspaper. You know, there were Old, Jewish newspapers, some of which were in Yiddish. There Were old, entertainment periodicals, you know, like Variety, which is written for showbiz insiders. and then there were, you know, standard New York Times, the Washington Post. and just going through every time she was mentioned and really looking into how can I put together
00:02:06 - Little bits of like what I call literary Detritus. Seeing Carol Was A figment of the imagination of, Sadie Zeman. Sadie Zeman was her real name, and, or Celine Zeman. Sadie was her, her mother's nickname. And then when she went into show business, she was told, no, no, no, you cannot have a Jewish name. That is not going to work. And so she became Jean Carroll. And Jean Carroll was a lot of things that Sadie Zeman never was. she was Glamorous.
00:02:49 - Was, Well, she was college Educated. There were a number of times where she would talk about, you know, I didn't go to college for this. And the truth is, she didn't go to college at all. But it was like through this persona of Jean Carroll, she got to be the person that she dreamed of being. Also on a factual level, Jean Carroll was the first woman to do, the first Jewish woman somewhat argue, the first woman to do standup comedy. I mean, she talks about the audience would be very resistant to a, a woman doing standup.
00:03:28 - Like you see the audience, she says, the men in the audience have their arms crossed, and they're looking at you with a sear as if to say, why should I listen to you? And then she said, sometimes the women in the audience would be even more angry, because, you know, she said that the women thought, well, why doesn't my husband listen to me? Like he's listening to her? And, there was also just logistical difficulties. I mean, trying to have a career in show business while also being a woman, whether you're on your own or whether you're taking care of a family, there's

"From Struggles to Stardom: The Journey of a Jewish Comedian"

00:04:11 - and then there was the difficulty that she felt herself of, you know, what am I doing? How am I, like, should I really be doing this? Is this what I should devote myself to? She was born in Paris, and her, her parents were from Eastern Europe, but they wound up in Paris through her father's defection. He was drafted into the Russian army, but he defected. And so they, they left, they went, they went through Europe. At one point, he was put in prison for defecting. and so she was born, in France,
00:04:54 - Her father then immigrated to the States, a couple years before her mother, so that he could put down roots, get some money, and then send money so that his wife and kids could, could join him in the States. So like a lot of immigrant families, they moved around. She finally arrived. she and her mother and their siblings arrived at Ellis Island when she was two years old. And they kind of moved around, generally throughout New England. But, she finally settled down when she was about eight. And one of the things that she learned upon settling down
00:05:39 - People were not thrilled at the influx of, Jewish immigration. So there were kids on the playground who would call her names and slurs, and, some even tried to attack her. so that was a, that was a harsh introduction to the world of antisemitism. So she was having a hard time, not only at school, but also at home because, her father struggled a great deal with alcoholism and, abusive tendencies. He would, he would abuse her mom.
00:06:22 - and it was really traumatizing for her. And so she made this pledge to herself, I'm never gonna let that happen. And she really connected it to economics. She felt like the reason that her mother couldn't escape from the situation is that her mother was financially dependent on her father. So she, which is such a, an intense realization for a child, but she said, okay, well, if I can make the money, then I will not be in the same situation that she is in. And if I can make more money than my father, then maybe I can support my mom and my siblings, and we can get out of his control.
00:07:06 - children can do. so she started making money by going to these, these amateur talent shows with prize money. It was sort of like a little, cottage industry. A lot of these shows were rigged so that, the kids were not so much local kids as paid child actors. And she had a role, which, it was called The Lemon Act. Basically, it's the person in the talent show who is so terrible that people just love to laugh at them. And so she had a little income from going
00:07:49 - audiences would just crack up. And this turned into a career. I mean, she became a performer first by being laughably bad. And then, she got trained. She got trained as a dancer, she got trained as a singer. She went onto Vaudeville and started doing this musical comedy review. And eventually she went from being laughably bad to laughably. Excellent orthopedic style changed over time. But what the, what I think is really interesting is the way that she changed what we would now call standup comedy,

"The Evolution of Stand-Up: Jean Carroll's Impact on Intimate Storytelling in Comedy"

00:08:29 - and quite intimate and confessional. You know, it used to be that a standup comedian would just tell jokes. It was like reciting a joke book. And for her, she made it far more about storytelling. She made it more about speaking about her observations, her specific point of view. And, you know, she wasn't the only person to do this, but it was a really big shift from, you know, joke book recitation. And this is the thing that at least in my view, is now so exciting about standup, is the, the personal storytelling.
00:09:11 - that, she was being so intimate. some critics were very surprised to see such a glamorous woman talk with, what they called brooklynese, mannerisms. I think she was really surprising. I mean, taken, if even setting aside the rather revolutionary fact that there was a woman doing this new genre of standup, which in and of itself was remarkable. the ways that she was doing it was so remarkable the way that she was making it conversational and, and intimate.
00:09:56 - or certainly, a game changer so that when Joan Rivers took up the mantle not too much longer after Jean Carroll was performing, or when, to fields, I mean, there's, there are so many, comedians at this point who take up this conversational tone, this performance where you sort of treat the audience like they're your best friend and you're just chitchatting with them. And it influenced, I mean, women, men, non-binary comedians today, it's, this is the new norm for standup.
00:10:38 - what she called dignity, and she felt that, it was undignified for women to, lose their femininity or to make a mockery of themselves, or to do too much broad physical humor. She was really insistent on reimagining what Jewish women were like. And specifically she was interested in changing the way that
00:11:18 - There were lots of wonderful Jewish women entertainers. Fannie Brice is incredible. Molly Berg, it was incredible. But a lot of the Jewish women prominent, comedians would sort of make their Jewishness into a punchline. It was, it was sort of like, minstrelsy, you know, they would lean really heavily into dialect and cartoonish kind of movements. And Jean Carroll refused to do that. She really made a case for Jewish women comedians
00:12:01 - assimilated, first and foremost. I hope that they take away, a good story. I mean, Jim Carroll comedians are storytellers, and Jean Carroll in particular was just a masterful raconteur of a storyteller. And so I truly hope that, that readers get even a morsel from the book of what it was like to to hear Jean Carroll telling her story. Also, I'm hoping that the book could be a good example of,

"Unearthing Overlooked Voices: Celebrating Women's Stories in History"

00:13:06 - as being stories from men. There are so many overlooked stories of women in every field of people of color, of people who have been marginalized, and it's such a great loss. So maybe this book can be a reminder for folks to, to check these nooks and crannies of history and find the stories that are just waiting to be unearthed and celebr.

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