(7 of 9)
Late that fall (1953) he arranged an audition before a live audience at San Francisco's lowercase, lower-depths hungry i (for intellectual). It was Sue's suggestion: "If they don't understand you," she said, "they'll label it whimsy." Onstage, Sahl began talking about the McCarthy jacket, explained that it was like the Eisenhower jacket except that it had "an extra flap to go over the mouth," added that "Senator McCarthy does not question what you say so much as he questions your right to say it." No one even smiled. Then up from the bar came a muscular laugh from Enrico Banducci, the club's proprietor, and Mort was in at $75 a week.
The New Life. In 6½ fast years he has raised that figure to $7,500 a week (the hungry i still gets him for a sentimental $5,000). Hollywood has put him in two films (All the Young Men opens this month) on a contract under which he writes his own lines; in Jerry Wald's In Love and War he picked up a field telephone up front in battle, said: "Good morning. This is World War II.'' As for television: "I think their spoon-feeding of the American public has resulted in a corruption and an ignorance that may sink this country," says Sahl solemnly. He wants, however, to destroy all the admen and network executives who have kept him at harm's length and most of the time off the air.
With the proceeds of his fame—some $700,000 in all—Sahl supports his now-retired parents, pays $900 a month alimony to Sue, who divorced him in 1957 and now dates his best friend, Jazz Saxophonist Paul Desmond. Once short on toys, he can no longer make the claim, has filled his rented home in West Hollywood's hills with 14 radios, four TV sets and two hi-fi sets that blare until 4 a.m., wearing out his Stan Kenton and Dave Brubeck records. The unshaven campus rat looking for work has become a hard-working future millionaire in need of a shave: he attacks himself twice a day with one of eleven electric razors. Standing 5 ft. 10 in., weighing 150 lbs., he eats little, smokes seldom, drinks ''only with chicks." On his wrist, on a single band, are two monstrous, oyster-shaped gold watches worth $610 apiece. At one time he had 40 watches. A friend, visiting him one day, picked up a magazine and out fell a $300 chronometer.
Sahl still spends much of his life in motor cars (he owns three); once a friend borrowed his Lincoln and found in it a huge pile of magazines, dirty laundry and $5,000 in cash. He dates beautiful women sporadically (Actresses Nancy Olsen, Haya Hayareet), has almost outgrown the starlet stage and has outlived a two-year romance with Actress Phyllis Kirk. Sometimes he prefers the company of carhops and waitresses ("Yes, I've worked that beat, too"). With an independent grin, he says: "I feel if you have enough of these healthy interests—watches, razors, automobiles—you will have no need for human relationships at all."
The New Comedians. The biggest symbol of Mort Sahl's success, bigger than the salary, the cars, the watches, is the fact that he is the patriarch of a new school of comedians that has grown up with him. Their material is less political, but, like Sahl, they all stay close to an essentially offbeat and imaginative style.