August 3, 1966: The Death of Lenny Bruce

Yes, he made jokes about the Catholic Church.

No, here, he's not dressing like a priest to make a point.

He's wearing a "Nehru jacket," made popular

by the late Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India.

August 3, 1966, 60 years ago: Comedian Lenny Bruce is found dead at his home in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. He was 40 years old.

He was born Leonard Alfred Schneider on October 13, 1925, the same day as Margaret Thatcher. He didn't live to see her rise to power, and God only knows what the "Iron Lady" (or, more accurately, the "Iron" "Lady") would have thought if she knew about this fact.

He was born in Mineola, Long Island, New York, and grew up in nearby Bellmore. While Alan King moved to Long Island after growing up in Brooklyn and becoming famous, Bruce was the 1st Long Island native to make it big in comedy, preceding such names as Eddie Murphy, Joy Behar, Rosie O'Donnell, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin James and Jim Breuer.

He was the 1st comedian to get big by using profanity and "sick humor." Typical of his material: "My wife caught me in bed with her mother. She said, 'You're sick!' I said, 'Why? She's your mother, not mine!'"

Bruce would joke about anything. Especially sex. And religion. Particularly the Catholic Church. In his routine, he called Pope John XXIII "John Baby." That, plus the fact that he was Jewish, pissed off a lot of conservative people in "the establishment."

He was often arrested for obscenity, for using "dirty words" onstage, or for talking about sex onstage. In a rare TV appearance, on The Steve Allen Show on April 5, 1959, he said, "There are words that offend me. Uh, let's see: 'Governor Faubus,' 'segregation' offend me. Uh, 'nighttime television' offends me. Some nighttime television. Uh, the shows that exploit homosexuality, narcotics and prostitution, under the guise of helping these societal problems."

October 13, 1960 was his 35th birthday. Dick Schaap was doing a profile on him for Newsweek magazine. At the same time, Schaap was covering the World Series. He invited Bruce to sit with him in the press box at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh for Game 7. Bruce admitted that he had never been to a baseball game before. It turned out to be one of the greatest games of all time, with Bill Mazeroski hitting a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning, giving the Pittsburgh Pirates a 10-9 win over the New York Yankees, and winning the Series in a major upset. Bruce told Schaap he'd enjoyed the game. But in his memoir, Schaap said that, as far as he knew, Bruce never went to another.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, if "the establishment" decided you needed what we would now call "canceling," it meant you wouldn't get hired. And any place that would hire you might get closed down. It also meant that you could get arrested for using profanity onstage. That was the conservatives closing you down. The conservatives doing the canceling.

Bruce was convicted of obscenity in New York on November 4, 1964. He was sentenced to 4 months in a workhouse. He appealed, and was freed pending that appeal.

That appeal was never heard: On August 3, 1966, at age 40, he was found with a needle in his arm at his home in the Hollywood Hills. It was known that he had a drug problem, but this was a little too convenient for his fans. They came to believe that he was murdered.

In 1972, Julian Barry staged the play Lenny on Broadway. Cliff Gorman won a Tony Award as its star. In 1974, Bob Fosse, better known for his dance-filled musicals, directed a film version. Dustin Hoffman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

In 2003, Governor George Pataki of New York gave Bruce a posthumous pardon. In 2004, the cable-TV network Comedy Central aired a special on the 100 greatest standup comedians of all time. Bruce was ranked 3rd. Coming in 2nd was George Carlin, who had once been arrested along with Bruce. Carlin called him "a brilliant comedian, who influenced me as much as a man in my moral thinking and attitudes as he did as a comedian." Coming in 1st was Richard Pryor, who had once said that hearing Bruce for the first time "changed my life."

October 4, 1965: The 1st Papal Mass In the Western Hemisphere

October 4, 1965, 60 years ago: For the 1st time, a Pope delivers a Mass in the Western Hemisphere. Pope Paul VI does so at Yankee Stadium in New York. A crowd of 90,000 attends. It is the only sellout at Yankee Stadium all year long.

I looked it up: No, the Yankees couldn't sell The Stadium out that season. Not on Opening Day, not on Old-Timers' Day, not even in the preceding month on the 1st Mickey Mantle Day. They held their 1st promotion that season, Bat Day, and couldn't sell it out then, either. Nor could the NFL's Giants sell The Stadium out in 1965.

On the same trip, the Pope addresses the United Nations. The theme of both of his speeches is peace: "No more war. Never again, war. Peace. It is peace that must guide the destinies of people and of all mankind."

The New York branch of the Catholic advocacy group the Knights of Columbus dedicates a plaque in honor of the event, which is hung on the center field wall at The Stadium. It is moved to Monument Park in 1976, and to the new Yankee Stadium in 2009, along with plaques for later Masses delivered by Popes John Paul II in 1979 (he also went to Shea Stadium and Madison Square Garden) and Benedict XVI in 2008.

While Pope Francis came to New York in September 2015, and delivered Mass at Madison Square Garden, the Yankees still playing home games made a Mass at the new Yankee Stadium logistically impossible on that occasion. He died earlier this year, without getting another chance. He was succeeded by Robert Prevost, the 1st American to be named Pope, who took the regnal name Leo XIV. He is a fan of the Chicago White Sox, and so knows the power of baseball. I have no doubt that, when he makes his first visit back to America, he will go to New York, and include a Mass at Yankee Stadium.

In 1972, Paul Owens was hired as general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. The man who built the Phils' quasi-dynasty of 1976-1983, including their 1980 World Championship and their 1983 Pennant (the latter of which he managed) was nicknamed "The Pope," not just because his name was Paul, but because he looked a bit like Pope Paul VI.

Paul VI died on August 6, 1978, of heart trouble at Castel Gandolfo, the Papal country retreat outside Rome. He was 80 years old. He died late at night, Rome time. The announcement was made at around the same time, U.S. Eastern Time, just as the Yankees were finishing up a 3-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles, with Catfish Hunter pitching a shutout. Broadcaster and former shortstop Phil Rizzuto, an Italian and a good Catholic, said, "Well, that puts a damper on even a Yankee win."

May 28, 1934: The Dionne Quintuplets Are Born

Dr. Roy Dafoe with the Dionne Quintuplets

May 28, 1934, 90 years ago: Five live baby girls are born to Elzire and Oliva-Édouard Dionne in Callender, Ontario, about 215 miles north of Toronto. To a world, and in particular a native country, Canada, suffering through the Great Depression, this successful birth of quintuplets, a rarity at the time, was considered a treasure.

The Dionnes were Franco-Ontarians, with French as their only language, at a time when French-Canadians, especially outside largely French-speaking Quebec, were discriminated against; and, within their own community, dominated by the Catholic Church, where any kind of birth control, in this era before the birth control pill, was forbidden.

And so, the Dionnes had already had 6 children, 5 of whom had survived infancy: Ernest, then 9 years old, meaning he was born when Elzire was just 16 (they married when she was 15 and he was 21); Rose Marie, 7; Thérèse, 6; Léo, who died of pneumonia just after birth; Daniel, 3, and Pauline, just 11 months.

In other of birth, they were: Yvonne Édouilda Marie, Annette Lillianne Marie, Cécile Marie Émilda, Émilie Marie Jeanne, and Marie Reine Alma. (Yes, each one had "Marie," the French version of "Mary," in her name. Did I mention that the family was Catholic?)

After the "quints," who made 11, they had 3 more sons, for a total of 14 children: Oliva Jr., Victor, and, giving Elzire something of a break, Claude was not born until 1946, when she was 37.

The Dionne girls were premature. After 4 months with their family, custody was signed over to the Red Cross, who paid for their care and oversaw the building of a hospital for the sisters. Less than a year after this agreement was signed, the Ontario government stepped in and passed the Dionne Quintuplets' Guardianship Act, 1935 which made them wards of the Crown until the age of 18.

The Ontario Provincial government and those around them began to profit by making them a significant tourist attraction. The fuss made over the quints was intense, without consideration to the feelings of the other children.

They starred in 3 feature films, fictionalized versions of their story, as "the Wyatt Quintuplets," with Jean Hersholt (despite his French-sounding name, he was from Denmark) starring as their doctor, John Luke, in all 3: The Country Doctor in 1936, Reunion in 1936, and Five of a Kind in 1938. The last of these starred Claire Trevor and Cesar Romero as radio journalists, competing for the quints' story. Essentially, Hersholt was playing Elzire's obstetrician, Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, who became the quints' pediatrician until his death in 1943, from complications from cancer, at age 60.

In 1944, Betty Hutton starred in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, as an American housewife who has 6 baby boys at once: Sextuplets. A newspaper headline made for the film reads, "CANADA DEMANDS A RECOUNT!" (In real life, Hutton had 3 children, all separate births.)

The quintuplets left the family home upon turning 18 years old in 1952, and had little contact with their parents afterwards. There may have been reason for it: In 1995, the 3 surviving quints alleged that their father had abused them. I won't post the details.

The Dionne Quintuplets in 1952

Perhaps the Church would have been disappointed if none of the sisters had become a nun, and one did, Émilie. But she developed seizures, and asked not to be left unattended. On August 6, 1954, at age 19, the nun who was supposed to be watching her thought she was asleep, and went to Mass. Émilie had another seizure, rolled onto her belly and, unable to raise her face from her pillow, accidentally suffocated and died. She was buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Corbeil, Ontario, near their hometown of Callender. And then there were four.

Marie, the youngest, married first, and had 2 daughters. Annette married, and had 3 sons. Cécile married, and had 5 children, 1 dying in infancy, and produced the only multiple birth among the quints, twin sons. Annette and Cécile eventually divorced, and Marie separated from her husband. Yvonne never married, or had children.

In 1965, author James Brough wrote a book, in cooperation with the then 4 surviving sisters, titled We Were Five. In 1970, when they were 36, Marie Houle was living alone in an apartment in Montreal, and her sisters were worried after not hearing from her in several days. Her doctor went to her home and found her in bed, Marie having been dead for days. A blood clot was found on her brain, and it was determined that she had died on February 27. She was buried at Cimètiere de Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, outside Montreal. And then there were three.

Their father, Oliva-Édouard, lived until 1979, age 75; their mother Elzire, until 1986, 77. In 1995, they lost their brother Ernest, 69; their sister Rose Marie, 67; and their brother Daniel, 63.

Left to right: Yvonne, Cécile and Annette in 1995

On November 19, 1997, the McCaughey Septuplets, the world's first known seven-baby birth to survive infancy, were born in Des Moines, Iowa. Memories of the Dionne Quintuplets, the surviving 3 then being 62, were brought up. The survivors wrote an open letter to parents Bobbi and Kenny McCaughey, warning against allowing too much publicity for the children. By that point, the surviving 3 Dionne sisters had reached a $4 million settlement with the Ontario government as compensation for their childhood exploitation.

Yvonne Dionne died on June 23, 2001, at 66, and was buried next to Marie at Sacred Heart in Corbeil. And then there were two.

Brother Victor lived until 2007, at age 79; brother Claude, until 2009, 63; brother Oliva Jr., until 2017, 81; sister Pauline, until 2018, 85; and sister Thérèse, until 2021, 91.

Cécile (left) and Annette, 2017

As of May 28, 2024, their 90th birthday, Annette Allard and Cécile Langlois live together in a house in in North Bay, Ontario. North Bay is the body of water on which Callander sat. The town's name was changed to North Bay, because of the confusion. A museum honoring the Quintuplets' legacy -- allegedly -- is nearby.

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