The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of An American Icon

By Ronald K.L. Collins and Ronald Collin

Book Overview

Lenny Bruce committed his life to telling the truth - as he saw it. But the things he said infuriated those in power, which is why the authorities in the largest, most progressive cities in the USA tried relentlessly to put him in jail. To them, Lenny's words were anarchic and immoral. For his fans - the hip, the discontented, the fringe - his words were not only razor sharp but a beacon in the dark, repressed society that was the early 1960s.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570719861
• ISBN13: 9781570719868
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Inc
• Length: 562 Pages
• Weight: 2.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.8" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Behind the scenes view

Most of us know Bruce's routines and the fact that he fought hard for first amendment rights that eventually brought him down. This book takes those routines and then goes behind the scenes on the commotion the routines brought about and how he shaped the law by his constant definding of the first amendment. This book shows how passionate Bruce was about the law and as you read it, you can see the influence and how that influence was passed to Carlin, Pryor, Hicks, and Kenison as well as how Bruce still influences performers on stage today like Lewis Black. Bruce made all of those performers possible and is still making cutting edge performers possible today.

Freedom of expression

This is a great book If You wnat to endulge in a "Head-y" overview of The trials of Mr. Bruce. It may make You angry more than make You laugh at all. Recomended for those interested in a study of artist rights

Lenny Bruce something of an enigma

Comedian has Lenny Bruce always been something of an enigma.Some compared him to the famous satirist Jonathan Swift, who was a moralist and who endeavoured to uncover the hypocrisy of various situations arising out of society.His defence attorneys even pointed out "he was not a mad man writing dirty words on the walls of a public toilet. He was an original social critic with an unconventional vocabulary." Others, however, including some well known journalists, perceived him as a "sick comedian" with a foul mouth, whose commentaries using filthy, obnoxious, depraved and obscene language pertaining to religion, race, sex, and government were of no social value. The dilemma-was he not protected under the First Amendment of the American Constitution pertaining to freedom of speech, notwithstanding his shocking language? Authors Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover, two attorneys and experts on the First Amendment, have authored a book entitled The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon.This is the first comprehensive and carefully documented account of Lenny Bruce's career and free speech struggles.Bruce had been involved in at least eight obscenity arrests, and had been subjected to six-obscenity court cases conducted in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York over a span of four years involving some 3, 500 pages of trial transcripts.For the most part, they all focused on so called "word crimes" concentrating on the following principal legal issues:Were his routines steeped in "bitter social criticism" of unquestionable value? Was his use of course language sexually arousing to the audience? If the words were non-erotic, how could they have been obscene? As mentioned, something is not necessarily obscene merely because it is in bad taste, shocking, disgusting, stupid, vulgar, embarrassing, immoral or offensive?Does the dominant appeal of the material used, taken as a whole, have a substantial tendency to deprave or corrupt the average person by inciting lascivious thoughts or arousing lustful desires?Did his use of "dirty words" corrupt the morals of youth or others, when you consider that under age persons were not permitted to attend the performances?Should an artist's use of word-taboos be judged, at least in significant part, by community standards?To better understand the power of Bruce's performances and all of the above legal questions, the authors have cleverly included a CD narrated by one of Bruce's most adamant supporters, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, highlighting some of his performances and trials. The CD also contains interviews with some of his ardent defenders, George Carlin, Hugh Hefner and Margaret Cho, and as a contrast, interviews with some of his prosecutors.Lenny Bruce died a tragic figure. He never lived to see the day where the courts recognized that comedians should not be imprisoned for their words. As the authors state, "the life of Lenny Bruce is a great cautionary tale about why

A First Amendment Martyr

Lenny Bruce lived to shock people. His nightclub routines, full of the worst of the four letter words, made fun of stuff which people, especially his contemporaries, were supposed to take seriously: religion, marriage, intimacy. However, _The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon_ (Sourcebooks) by Ronald K. L. Collins and David M. Skover, makes plain that the iconoclastic Bruce had enormous respect for the law. His rooms were cluttered with tapes, court transcripts, and legal research efforts, and he wrote letters to judges trying to explain how his comedy was legally protected speech. He even showed civic respect for the policemen who were so often out to get him. Bruce saw that it was his job to change the law, and while he never really managed that, he made historic changes by fighting battles that those after him would not have to fight. The authors of this engrossing book have found that his story is virtually absent from the history of the First Amendment; this is a corrective. Bruce was arrested many times for obscenity, but particularly interesting in this book is the demonstration that what often drove the arrests was irritation about his blasphemy. Bruce had routines that could bother any denomination. After mockingly accepting Jewish responsibility for killing Jesus, he roared, "We Jews killed Christ, and if he comes back, we'll kill him again!" He had a hilarious routine in which Christ and Moses come into the back of St. Patrick's Cathedral, to the embarrassment of Cardinal Spellman and Archbishop Sheen, who have to telephone the pope to explain ("_Of course they're white!_"). We have no blasphemy laws in this country (to the dismay, still, of some), but he was literally brought up on blasphemy charges. Blasphemy could not stick, but obscenity might. The problem Bruce had was that according to the Supreme Court decision in _Roth_, a work had to be taken as a whole, but the cops and prosecutors always concentrated on the specific words. The vice squad informers could, during a performance, tally every naughty synonym Bruce used for genitalia or coitus, and then present the list for consideration by the grand jury. Consideration to the sweep of Bruce's satire was seldom given.As demonstrated in this comprehensive and well referenced volume, by two lawyers who obviously love their subject and enjoy explaining First Amendment issues, Bruce has had a resurrection. There have been plays and movies, but more importantly, as George Carlin (who was once arrested for attending a Bruce performance) said, "Lenny opened all the doors, or kicked them down." The nightclubs and comedy clubs are now open for anyone, with the sensible idea that if you might be offended by what you hear, don't pay to go in. A stand-up comic might fear bombing on stage, or getting heckled, but because Bruce has already taken the heat, no comic has to fear getting arrested. Within this book is a CD of Bruce giving some of his mos

First Amendment Icon

This is really an excellent book. The first 200 pages focus on the embattled comedian, his bits and his scrapes with the law. As someone who was never a Lenny Bruce fan I found this section a provocative read. However, I found the book becoming progressively more compelling as the authors get into the details of the First Amendment trials. They do a masterful job of intergrating theory with the mechanics of placing the factual "matter" (the testimony) before the finder of fact. In its discussion of the post-death and resurrected Lenny Bruce the book ascends to its highest level. The irony of Lenny Bruce as a First Amendment icon, whose free speech is beyond challange and the political destruction of William Kuh provide brilliant insights on the vicissitudes of American popular culture since the 1960s