Some final laughs, a last dance for comic legend Marty Allen
It’s funny what you remember about someone. It’s really funny what you remember about someone who was really funny.
On Friday, I remembered Marty Allen, along with hundreds more of his friends at a celebration of life at Rampart Casino’s Marquis Ballroom. Those who spoke knew the comic performer well, beginning with the afternoon’s emcee, his widow, Karon Kate Blackwell. Marty’s niece Molly Shields, his comic buddies Louie Anderson, Jimmie “J.J.” Walker and piano showman George Bugatti all took the stage to reminisce, share a a laugh and shed a tear.
Warren Durso and Lou Magelowitz revived Allen & Rossi’s wine-tasting sketch, a fan favorite that also reminded the audience of Steve Rossi’s greatness as Marty’s comic foil. Sean and John Scott of “Absinthe” blew some minds, as always, with a rocking tap-dance number.
Marty was fond of dancing and great dancers.
I was asked to speak, too, as a friend and also because Marty was a real reader who scoured the newspaper every morning. Marty was especially easy to write about, easy to support and easy to be friends with. When I approached to say hello, those big eyes would light up and dance, just as he would at the end of his stage shows.
Marty performed almost to the end, too, before he died Feb. 12 at a Las Vegas rehabilitation clinic of complications from pneumonia. He was 95 and had broken his hip in a fall on Christmas Day at his Las Vegas home. Allen’s final Las Vegas performance was in March at South Point Showroom, marking his 95th birthday. He and Karon had planned to perform this year in New York and Florida.
Marty was a headliner and frequent TV show guest for 60 years. He and Rossi enjoyed a spirited run from 1957-68, when they headlined at the major Strip resorts of the day. Their 44 appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” including two shows starring the Beatles, were legendary. The duo reunited for a few gigs in Vegas in the early 1990s.
Marty’s fame was self-evident, and on Friday morning I struggled with what to say about him. I thought of how I knew him, and my mind flashed to the end of a pencil: In grade school, I had a pencil with a troll doll at the end, and the little guy with eyes bulging and wild hair seemed to speak to me. It was just a funny little figure until I came to realize this rubber toy looked a lot like an actual person.
Marty was a regular on daytime TV, something I learned when I was home sick with strep throat for a week in fifth grade. I watched a lot of television, including “The Hollywood Squares,” and there, in the upper-right corner, was Marty, a comedian I’d one day call a friend.
The show’s host, Peter Marshall, called on this funny man with, “Marty, what do you call a group of chickens?”
“A bucket!” was the answer.
I told that story and the story of the time I met Marty at Las Vegas Athletic Club on West Sahara Avenue, as he was stepping off a StairMaster, wearing a gray sweatshirt and big yellow shorts, his black hair matted with sweat. He pulled off these wearing gigantic headphones — no tiny earbuds for this guy — and said, “Not bad for 80, eh?”
He beamed, and I always said Marty looked funny. He just looked like he was ready to tell a joke, and usually he was.
The speakers on Friday, what would have been Marty’s 96th birthday, recalled a funny and fun-loving man. Anderson said, “Marty was a very funny guy — unless you got his order wrong at a restaurant.” He also said he wished that he had recorded some of Allen’s “blue” material.
“He could be dirty, and his dirty stuff was funny,” Anderson said.
It was Walker who recited Allen’s famed line, a booming “Hello, Dere!” that drew a cheer.
Marty’s favorite Vegas comics sent video messages from the road, including Luxor headliner Carrot Top and Mirage mainstay Terry Fator. Both were inspired by Allen’s fearless comedy (one of Allen’s best bits was playing a ventriloquist puppet, Buddy, with Karon as puppeteer). It’s not a fluke that both of Allen’s disciples have performed on the Strip for more than a decade.
Videos of Marty’s wonderful TV appearances were summoned, too. With Martha Raye, he wound up with a head slathered in lard and cake mix. With Rossi singing, he danced up a storm on “The Dean Martin Show.”
At the end of the program, Karon displayed the Louisville Slugger that Marty used as a cane in his later years. He batted a thousand with that thing, swinging for the fences on red-carpet appearances. But as Karon said, the cane could stand on its own. Marty always pushed it aside so he could boogie-woogie while his wife played a bouncy piano riff behind him.
It was my favorite moment from the couple’s final performances, watching Marty groove around the stage with that big grin on his face. At Rossi’s 82nd birthday party, Marty talked about dancing. “In life, you gotta dance. And to dance, you gotta find someone to dance with.”
Marty Allen found that, in Karon and in all those friends who showed up who loved to watch him laugh and dance and say a final goodbye. He wouldn’t have had it any other way.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.
