Word: mitzi
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...Sunset Boulevard that housed the Comedy Store was a nightly practice field for up-and-coming comics who would troop onstage to hone their material, try out new jokes - and hope to get seen by the agents, managers and talent scouts who were regular clubgoers. The club's owner, Mitzi Shore - a pretty, petite brunet with a whiny, Roseanne-like voice who had inherited the Comedy Store in a divorce from comedian Sammy Shore - viewed the place not as a traditional nightclub but as a "college" of comedy where newcomers could learn their craft and grow as artists...
...issue wasn't today's relatively abstruse one of payments for DVDS or Internet downloads; it was simply getting paid. Tom Dreesen, a comedian and former Teamster from Chicago who became a spokesman for the comics, pleaded with Shore to give them at least a token amount. "I told Mitzi, 'You pay the waiters, you pay the waitresses, you pay the guy who cleans the toilets. Why don't you at least pay the comedians?'" says Dreesen. Many of the struggling kids who were helping her club thrive, he pointed out, couldn't even afford to buy groceries...
...night at his apartment. I was totally choked up. And he said, 'Those comedians are my friends. And they'll be my friends for the rest of my life.' I said, 'I'm sorry to hear that, David.'" Says Argus Hamilton, one of the comics who was closest to Mitzi: "It broke her heart...
...Mitzi called me 10 minutes later and said, 'Let's settle this thing right now,'" says Dreesen. On May 4, a settlement was reached to pay the comics $25 per set on both weekends and weekdays. After a six-week walkout, the comedians went back to work, claiming victory...
...comedy-club boom of the 1980s. All of which was part of laying the groundwork for a culture in which comedians turned TV hosts help set the national agenda and have would-be Presidents as guests. Letterman and Leno may look more like management than labor these days?more Mitzi Shore than strikers. But they haven't forgotten the old grievances. They know all the lines...