Sid Caesar Biography

Fast Facts

• Started career as a musician; played clarinet and saxophone in small bands and later in the orchestras of Charlie Spivak, Shep Fields and Charlie Thornhill
• Turned to acting while serving in the Coast Guard during WWII; first stage performance was in the military musical Tars and Spars
• His signature double-talk routines were inspired by listening to customers speak foreign languages in his father's restaurant as a child
• His hit variety show, Your Show of Shows, helped launch the careers of comedy writers Mel Brooks, Neil and Danny Simon, and Carl Reiner in the 1950s
• Inducted into the TV Academy Hall of Fame in 1985
• Published two autobiographies: Where Have I Been? (1982) and Caesar's Hours: My Life in Comedy, With Love and Laughter (2003)
• Married to wife, Florence, for 67 years; she died in March 2010