Jackie Mason

Jackie Mason (born June 9, 1931) is an American stand-up comedian and film and television actor. He is ranked #63 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all-time.

Early life

Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City.

Mason graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the City College of New York. At age 25, he received semikhah from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and was ordained a rabbi (as his three brothers, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had been), in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Three years later, he resigned from his job in a synagogue to become a comedian because, he says, "Somebody in the family had to make a living."

Career

Mason was a comedian at the Fieldston Hotel in Swan Lake, New York in the summer of 1955. He was let go because his act was considered too far ahead of its time. The patrons had never been exposed to a comic who seemed to be ridiculing them. A few years later, Don Rickles came along, but by then audiences had become open to this type of humor throughout the borscht belt.