Biography: Lenny Bruce, the Fighter

Lenny Bruce was not a fighter in the physical sense such as, say, a boxer, but he fought hard in a very different sense. In 2004, he was voted No. 3 of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time by Comedy Central behind Richard Pryor and George Carlin. This is a pretty amazing feat considering Lenny Bruce has been dead for over forty years. How and why did this happen?

Lenny Bruce, the fighter, was born Leonard Alfred Schneider, the melancholic child as his mother called him, in Mineola, Long Island, New York in 1925. His childhood was a chaotic one. His parents divorced when he was five and he was bounced around among different relatives. His mother, Sally Marr, was a stage performer who had an enormous influence on his career. In 1942, Bruce joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 17. He was on active duty in Europe until his discharge in 1946.

In 1947, at the age of 22, Lenny Bruce, the fighter, emerged on the scene as Lenny Bruce, the comedian. He earned $12 and a free spaghetti dinner for his first stand-up performance in Brooklyn, New York. From this modest start he got a break doing impressions. It was around this time that he changed his name to Bruce because, "Leonard Alfred Schneider sounded too Hollywood." No matter what he called himself, Lenny Bruce, the fighter, soon proved himself to be something other than a "mimic."

In the early 1950's Bruce began to write screenplays. He also married the stripper, Hot Honey Harlowe, in 1951. She starred in his first two films: Dance Hall Racket (1953), and Princess of the Nile (1954). Bruce also wrote two other screenplays in 1954: Dream Follies and The Rocket Man. However, Lenny Bruce, the fighter, soon proved himself to be something other than a screenwriter.