Marty Feldman. The Eyes Have It!

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Martin Alan "Marty" Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982).

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Blog Created: 8-19-2024

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Martin Alan Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was a British actor, comedian and comedy writer. He was known for his prominent, misaligned eyes.

He initially gained prominence as a writer with Barry Took on the ITV sitcom Bootsie and Snudge and the BBC Radio comedy programme Round the Horne. He became known as a performer on At Last the 1948 Show (co-writing the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch" which Monty Python would perform) and Marty, the latter of which won Feldman two British Academy Television Awards including Best Entertainment Performance in 1969.

Feldman went on to appear in films such as The Bed Sitting Room and Every Home Should Have One, the latter of which was one of the most popular comedies at the British box office in 1970. In 1971, he starred in the comedy-variety sketch series for ATV called The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine. In 1974, he appeared as Igor in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, for which he received the first Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He died in 1982 of a heart attack while filming Yellowbeard in Mexico City.

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Early life ~

Feldman was born on 8 July 1934 in Canning Town, east London, the son of Cecilia (née Crook) and Myer Feldman, a gown manufacturer, who was a Jewish immigrant from Kiev, Ukraine. He recalled his childhood as "solitary" especially during his years of evacuation to the countryside during the Second World War.

Feldman suffered from thyroid disease and developed Graves' ophthalmopathy, causing his eyes to protrude and become misaligned. Bruce Baum drew inspiration therefrom to record "Marty Feldman Eyes", a parody of "Bette Davis Eyes", in 1981.

A childhood injury, a car crash, a boating accident, and reconstructive eye surgery may also have contributed to his appearance. He later described his appearance as a factor in his career success: "If I aspired to be Robert Redford, I'd have my eyes straightened and my nose fixed and end up like every other lousy actor, with two lines on Kojak. But this way, I'm a novelty."

Career

Early career ~

Leaving school at 15, Feldman worked at the Dreamland funfair in Margate, but had dreams of a career as a jazz trumpeter, and performed in the first group in which tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes was a member. Feldman joked that he was "the world's worst trumpet player." By the age of 20, he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian.

Dreamland Margate.

Although his early performing career was undistinguished, Feldman became part of a comedy act—Morris, Marty and Mitch—who made their first television appearance on the BBC series Showcase in April 1955. Later in the decade, Feldman worked on the scripts for Educating Archie in both its radio and television incarnations, with Ronald Chesney and later, Ronald Wolfe.

In 1954, Feldman met Barry Took while both were working as performers, and with Took, he eventually formed an enduring writing partnership which lasted until 1974. They wrote a few episodes of The Army Game (1960) and the bulk of Bootsie and Snudge (1960–62), both situation comedies made by Granada Television for the ITV network. For BBC Radio they wrote Round the Horne (1964–67), their best-remembered comedy series, which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. (The last series of Round the Horne, in 1968, was written by others.) This work placed Feldman and Took 'in the front rank of comedy writers', according to Denis Norden.

Feldman then became the chief writer and script editor on The Frost Report (1966–67). With John Law, he co-wrote the much-shown "Class" sketch, in which John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height, suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker) and working class (Corbett).

Ascent ~

The television sketch comedy series At Last the 1948 Show raised Feldman's profile as a performer. The other three participants (future Monty Python members Graham Chapman and John Cleese; and future star of The Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor) needed a fourth cast member, and had Feldman in mind. In a sketch broadcast on 1 March 1967, Feldman's character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) regarding a series of fictitious books, achieving success with Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. His character in At Last the 1948 Show was often called Mr. Pest, according to Cleese. Feldman was co-author—along with Chapman, Cleese and Brooke-Taylor—of the sketch "Four Yorkshiremen", which was written for At Last the 1948 Show, later adapted by Monty Python for their stage performances.

Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Feldman was given his own series on the BBC, Marty, in 1968; it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers. Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was retitled It's Marty (this title being retained for the DVD release of the series).

John Junkin.

Marty proved popular enough with an international audience (the first series winning the Golden Rose Award at Montreux) to launch a film career. Feldman's first feature film role was in Every Home Should Have One (1970).

After 1970 ~

The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1971–72) was a television series co-produced by Associated Television (ATV) in the UK and the American Broadcasting Company, produced at ATV's Elstree Studios, near London. This vehicle lasted for just one series.

In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson produced a short BBC sketch series for Feldman titled Marty Back Together Again—a reference to reports about the star's health—but it never captured the impact of the earlier series.

On film, in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (1974), Feldman played Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore", a comic response to Gene Wilder's claim that 'it's pronounced FRONK-EN-STEEN'). Many lines in Young Frankenstein were improvised. Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part.

Marty Feldman as Igor in the feature film, Young Frankenstein.

Feldman's performances on American television included The Dean Martin Show.

Marty in a sketch with Dean Martin on the Dean Martin Show.

In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Dayle Haddon in the sex comedy 40 Gradi All'Ombra del Lenzuolo (Sex with a Smile). He later appeared in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and Brooks' Silent Movie, as well as directing and starring in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. He also guest-starred in "Arabian Nights", an episode of The Muppet Show in which he was teamed up with several Sesame Street characters, especially Cookie Monster, with whom he shared a playful cameo comparing their eyes side by side.

Feldman with Cookie Monster.

Recording career ~

During the course of his career, Feldman recorded two albums, Marty (1968) and I Feel a Song Going Off (1969), re-released in 1971 as The Crazy World of Marty Feldman. The songs on his second album were written by Denis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and The Two Ronnies). It was later released as a CD in 2007.

Max Bygraves.

Personal life ~

From January 1959 until his death in 1982, Feldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan, with whom he had two children. She died in 2010, at the age of 74, in Studio City, Los Angeles. Feldman's peers have reported, in a number of biographies, that he was highly attractive to women in spite of his unconventional facial appearance. He spent time in jazz clubs, as he found a parallel between 'riffing' in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz.

Actor Marty Feldman and wife Lauretta Sullivan. (Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images).

Politically, Feldman was described as an "avowed socialist", telling one interviewer, "I'm a socialist by conviction, if not by lifestyle", and another, "I'm a socialist from way back, but in order to pay my back taxes I have to live in America to earn enough money to pay the back tax I owe to the socialist government that I voted in." He later joked that when a Labour cabinet minister said to him, "Of course you vote Labour", Feldman replied, "No, I don't, because I'm a socialist!" Nevertheless, he generally did not seriously discuss politics in public, and once stated: "I feel it would be presumptuous for me to make any statements about American politics because I'm a guest here."

An exception was during a promotional tour for The Last Remake of Beau Geste, when he denounced the campaign led by Anita Bryant against homosexuality. Another exception was after the murder of his friend John Lennon. Feldman subsequently became an anti-gun advocate in the US, even wearing an anti-gun t-shirt and hat pin during his appearance on the late night TV show Fridays.

In 1971, Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the obscenity trial for Oz magazine. He would not swear on the Bible, choosing instead to affirm. Throughout his testimony, he mocked the judge after it was implied that Feldman had no religion because he was not Christian.

Feldman was a lacto-ovo vegetarian. In a 1979 interview, when asked how long he had practiced this, he stated: "I was about five and a half or six when I converted; I'm forty-three now, so it's been approximately thirty-eight years."

Feldman wrote an autobiography, Eye Marty: the newly discovered autobiography of a comic genius, which was brought to light following Lauretta's death. It was published in 2012 with a foreword by Eric Idle.

Death ~

Feldman was a heavy cigarette smoker for most of his life, often smoking five packets daily. He died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982 at age 48 during the making of the film Yellowbeard; the film was subsequently dedicated to him. According to an editor's note in Feldman's posthumously published autobiography, Graham Chapman was with him at the time of his death.

Feldman is buried in the Garden of Heritage at Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery, California, near his idol, Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton.

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Feldman also got to try his hand at a career in the director’s chair, calling the shots for The Last Remake of Beau Geste and the 1980 film In God We Tru$t. Sadly, neither performed well, and due to the bad box office returns, Universal ultimately canceled his contract.

Feldman was all set to make his big comeback when he took a role in the pirate film Yellowbeard. In December of 1982, the film was wrapping up filming in Mexico City – but it ended in a tragedy.

Feldman was waiting in his hotel room in case he needed to reshoot anything for the film when he suffered a massive heart attack due to shellfish poisoning and died at age 48.

Around 100 of his closest friends and relatives attended a service in the Hollywood Hills before he was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, close to his comedy idol Buster Keaton.

He stayed married to his wife Lauretta until the very end.

“People recognized the love and humanity in him. He approached everyone as an equal; that’s why children loved him,” friend and fellow actor Henry Pollack said.

“Marty Feldman never liked funerals, so I guess he wouldn’t have liked this one. But he showed up anyway, didn’t he?”

“Marty Feldman was uniquely gifted,” Mel Brooks said. “There are too many complicated feelings that make it difficult, if not impossible, to express this kind of loss in words. I’ll miss him.”

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Quotes by Marty Feldman ~

‘I was not as skilled a performer as the others but my freakish looks made me stand out. David Frost had thought my ‘wonky eye’ would scare off the punters but the exact opposite occurred. On November 9 I almost ended my career in front of the Queen Mum. I was invited to perform at The Royal Variety Performance. I despise everything about the monarchy and feel embarrassed about the turmoil it has created in the world. However, the show was a benefit concert for a cause I believed in and it was a dream come true to appear at the Palladium, where I had seen Danny Kaye. It seemed like only yesterday that I was flogging jokes by the stage door to anyone who would have them. During my sketch I divested myself of my clothing, upsetting my mum and Phil the Greek [Prince Philip]. I was told that nobody takes their clothes off in front of royalty, though Phil must have done. Where else could Anne and Charles have come from? Maybe there’s been another Immaculate Conception that we don’t know about. The audience were afraid to laugh but I had a right old time’.

In Los Angeles I was lucky enough to make good business contacts. An agent asked me who I’d like to work with. I sputtered, “Gene Wilder”. Suddenly I was on the phone with this very polite, soft-spoken man who told me that he had been lying in bed very late one night and was flicking through the telly channels when he’d stumbled upon The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine. He watched a couple of minutes of the show, then sprang out of bed and scribbled on a yellow notepad “Young Frankenstein”. Mel Brooks had pulled together a great cast and crew. The wardrobe lady was Dorothy Jeakins – she’d just come off the film The Way We Were, which my twin Robert Redford had been in. She told me I was just as handsome as him! I became the only guy to appear in a horror film without make-up!’

‘I was hanging out with Harry Nilsson on his birthday, watching Ronald Reagan campaign on telly when the phone rang. It was John Lennon. John asked to speak to me and was so funny, quoting dialogue from my old shows. He said he drove Yoko crazy every time they went somewhere by screaming, “Wait for me, wait for me” from one of my sketches’.

‘One morning I blurted out that I thought we should be free to have sex with other people, that marriage and monogamy were antiquated traditions. Lauretta, my long-suffering partner, got up and went to the other side of the house. She reappeared moments later with a bagful of my stuff and told me to get out and go f*** whoever I wanted. I was out of the house before I had time to grasp the depth of my blunder. Days and weeks dragged on. I ended up driving a great distance to stay with John Cleese, who was not only a good friend but also no stranger to love and flux. After a while he begged Lauretta to take me back because he couldn’t bear it any more’.

‘Maybe a suicide attempt could do wonders for my career. I was actually starting to fancy the idea of disappearing altogether. No such luck! For me, it might have been a lot easier to stay at home. I could have told Lauretta funny jokes, played my trumpet for her and written poems that only she would ever see. But my mind is an attic full of crazy dreams that never quit or disappoint me, and I have been blessed with these eyes to see things differently and have people see me in a different way.’

By Coronet from ‘eYE Marty: The Newly Discovered Autobiography Of A Comic Genius’ by Marty Feldman.

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Eric Idle. 2003.

Gene Wilder.

Graham Chapman.

Dayle Haddon.

Marty Feldman and Michael McConkey in The Last Remake of Beau Geste, 1977.

Mel Brooks attending a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Robert Redford. 1969.

Educating Archie.

Marty with Paul Lynde on the Dean Martin Show.

Promotional photo for The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, 1972.

Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, dancer Aimi MacDonald, Graham Chapman and Marty on At Last the 1948 Show in 1967.

Mel Brookes shooting a scene.

Feldman's gravestone in Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Marty's grave marker was getting weathered.

It has since been cleaned.

Lauretta Sullivan Feldman's Obituary ~

Lauretta Sullivan Feldman, widow of British comedy writer, actor, and comedian, Marty Feldman, died March 12, 2010 in her home after a short illness. She resided at 3188 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in the Studio City district of Los Angeles, California at the time of her death.

Lauretta was born September 29, 1935 in Bristol, England to James and Nellie Sullivan and married comedy television writer, Marty Feldman, in 1959.

Marty created a career on British radio and television as a writer and performer in his own series before arriving in Los Angeles to pursue further opportunities. His success continued as he starred in such blockbuster movies as "Young Frankenstein," "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother," "Silent Movie" and directed and starred in "The Last Remake of Beau Geste." Lauretta was always at Marty's side, lending support and advice as he forged his career. In 1982, Marty died of a heart attack while on location in Mexico during the making of a film.

Lauretta, a patron of the arts, opened her house to the large expatriate British community, singers, musicians and other friends, including jazz greats of the time. On any given evening, wonderful jazz and entertainment would be performed by her friends, Harry Nilsson, Van Dyke Parks, Brenda Vaccaro, and others.

In later years, Lauretta, affectionately becoming the doyenne, could be seen at Largo, Mark Flanagan's Los Angeles nightclub cabaret, encouraging and befriending the young artists who performed at the club.

She leaves behind her dear friends, Ann Levy, Marsha Clark, Mark Flanagan, Jon Brion, Paul Thomas Anderson, Julian Holloway, Stanley Dorfman, Stan Schneider, and many others whom she considered her extended family. She is survived by her loving brother, Anthony Sullivan of London, England.

Published in the Los Angeles Times on April 15, 2010.

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