Monroe Silver (December 21, 1875 – May 3, 1947) was an American actor and singer who was also a comedian and monologist using a
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
dialect-accent in his performances.
Career
For various record labels, he recorded
78rpm
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts nea ...
discs of parodies like "
Cohen on the Telephone" and "Cohen Phones to His Friend Levy". Joe Hayman first recorded the monologue "Cohen on the Telephone" in London in July 1913 for
Regal Records and released in the U.S. by
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...
.
Lee De Forest
Lee de Forest (August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American inventor and a fundamentally important early pioneer in electronics. He invented the first electronic device for controlling current flow; the three-element "Audion" triode va ...
recorded Silver doing "Cohen on the Telephone" for the DeForest
Phonofilm
Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the early 1920s.
Introduction
In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, ...
sound-on-film process. The film premiered as ''Monroe Silver, Famed Monologist'' with 17 other Phonofilm
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
s at the Rivoli Theater in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on 15 April 1923. This film is now in the Maurice Zouary collection at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
. From 1925 to 1935, Silver appeared on ''
The Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra
''The Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra'' was a musical variety radio program, sponsored by B. F. Goodrich and heard in different formats and timeslots from 1925 until 1935. The performers included Henry Burr (tenor), Carl Mathieu (tenor), James Stanl ...
'' radio show.
With Silver's Jewish/Yiddish accent, words like "What are you doing?" came out as "Vot arrr you doink?" Some performers like Barney Bernard and
Louis Mann
Louis Mann (20 April 1865 – 15 February 1931) was an American theatre actor and sometime director, who in his later life made a few appearances in motion pictures. He was married to actress and playwright Clara Lipman.
History
Mann was bor ...
tried to imitate him in the early 1920s, while Silver himself adapted the monologues of British vaudevillian Joe Hayman and others. Monroe Silver was also caricatured in the
Fleischer Brothers
Fleischer Studios () is an American animation studio founded in 1929 by brothers Max and Dave Fleischer, who ran the pioneering company from its inception until its acquisition by Paramount Pictures, the parent company and the distributor of ...
cartoon ''
Swing You Sinners
''Swing You Sinners!'' is a 1930 animated cartoon short, produced by Fleischer Studios as part of the ''Talkartoons'' series. The cartoon is notable for its surreal, dark, and abstract content.
Plot
Bimbo is seen late at night, trying to st ...
'' (1930).
Silver made many recordings with
Billy Murray, as an Irish and Jewish dialect combo "Casey and Cohen". Their last recording together was on February 11, 1943, for Beacon Records.
See also
*
Jewish humor
The tradition of humor in Judaism dates back to the Torah and the Midrash from the ancient Middle East, but generally refers to the more recent stream of verbal and often anecdotal humor of Ashkenazi Jews which took root in the United States ove ...
References
Bibliography
* Corenthal, Michael G., ''Cohen on the Telephone: Jewish Humor and Dialect'' (Yesterday's Memories, 1984)
* Silver, Monroe, ''Monroe Silver's Famous "Cohen on the Telephone" and Over One Hundred Original Jokes, Stories, Etc.'' (New York: Irving Berlin, 1927)
*
Whitburn, Joel, ''Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music'' (Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research, Inc., 1986)
External links
*
''Cohen on the Telephone'' at SilentEra with picture of Silver from the filmBilly Murray and Monroe Silver recordings at Internet ArchiveBilly Murray and Monroe Silver "Oh, How We Love Our Alma Mater" (1927) at Internet ArchiveList of Victor recordings of Silver at UC Santa Barbara archiveList of Victor recordings with Silver as speakerMonroe Silver recordings at Internet ArchiveSilver at Library of Congress "National Jukebox"Discography of Monroe Silver at HonkingDuck (81 listings)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Silver, Monroe
Vocalion Records artists
Vaudeville performers
1875 births
1947 deaths