Renee Schultz, a wild-eyed comedian who became known for his high-energy performances delivered in the 1970s and '80s on a table full of bite-sounding effects and stupid props, passed away on Sunday at his home in Delray Beach, Florida.
His son and only immediate survivor Mark confirmed his death.
“I can't be kidding,” Schultz told the Orlando Sentinel in 1972, but that didn't matter. “The people I identify with those I like,” he added. “Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Guy Marks – Zanny.
With his expressive face, his physicality and the rapid pace of his actions, Mr. Schultz exuded Rooney's strength. He began his comedy career in the late 1960s, continuing his job as a high school gym teacher.
On stage, he explained the beginning of life on Earth, cutting off the story with explosions and other noises. He bowed the banana as if it were a violin (while biting it from the violin). He played the lonely ranger, carrying a small toy horse with a stick, throwing float loops from the box, and playing in a mask and a small cowboy hat. Rendered bullfighting battles among family experts of various ethnic groups. William Morris's agent was in the audience and warned the baby doll with his backpack to stop crying.
“Lenny has a special place in the hearts and memories of everyone in his peer group,” David Letterman, who met Schultz while performing in Los Angeles, said in a phone interview. “He's spoken more randomly and more frequently than anyone who spent time at a comedy store in the 1970s.”
Letterman, who later presented Schultz to audiences around the country, recalls the night when Schultz slammed his face against the cake, covering his body with fruit, and peeling off. “He said, 'If you get hooked, I'll take this banana and shove it into my pants.' The purpose was to make the audience crazy enough to do it – he needed a motive – and he put them on the grown pitch of his pants.
The next day, comedy store owner Mitzi Shore met with Schultz and told him he would never be able to do the routine again, Letterman said: It caused problems with the pests.
“We invited mice because there was a lot of garbage from Rennie's actions,” Letterman said.
Leonard Schultz was born in the Bronx on December 13th, 1933. His parents, Taylor Louis Schultz, who managed the house, were both Russian natives. Rennie aims to pitch in the major leagues and is scouted by the Yankees, but loses his chance on the contract when he gets injured in the right shoulder.
After serving in the Maine Army, Schultz received his bachelor's degree in education from New York University in 1955.
He soon began his career as a physical education teacher at a high school in New York City, lasting for about 30 years, and continued ever since he became a working comedian. He enjoyed the stability of jobs in cities with pensions as a hedge against the unpredictability of show business. He received his Master's degree in Education from Hunter College in 1967.
The student was his first audience.
“When I was teaching, the kids in my class were laughing so hard, saying, 'You should be in show business,'' he told the Bristol Herald Courier in Tennessee in 1980.
In 1969, encouraged by a friend who loved his sense of humor and told him he should develop a routine, he improvised an open mic night. He went well enough. He also worked at Catch a Rising Star, another popular comedy club in Manhattan.
“He was loved because there was no one like him,” said comedian Bill Sheft, who met Schultz on Catch-A Rising Star. “But you didn't want to follow him because the stage looks like someone was thrown into the middle of a grocery store.”
His actions preceded Gallagher's actions. Gallagher has become known for sending watermelons crushed with a watermelon hammer to the audience.
“I tied the water to circus music, and people put plastic and umbrellas,” Schultz told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 1996.
When Schultz opened in the iconic locker Frank Zappa at Madison Square Garden in 1976, Joe Bibona reviewed the Daily News show, adding, “Anyone who likes to pull a wing from a fly might find humor,” adding, “when the comedian started to oppose his mouth, he threw a towel.”
Schultz has been seen in “Tonight's Show Starring Johnny Carson” and many other talk shows. He also performed at many hotels in the Catskill.
In 1976 he was a regular on two television shows. The short-lived sitcom “Ball Four” is based on the bestselling book by former New York Yankee pitcher Jim Booton and stars Bouton, who played the pitcher. And at “The Bart Conby Show in the End of Summer Fall,” he played Bionic Chicken, an action hero in costume.
In 1977 and 1978, Schultz appeared in new versions of “Laugh-in.” The original show revolutionized television comedy in the late 1960s, but despite the cast including the young Robin Williams, the reboot was cancelled after six episodes.
Schultz joined Semiretirement in the 1990s, but continued to perform occasionally in the early 2000s.
Marriage between Mark's mother Francine Ornstein and Helen Fleischer, who ran the sound system for Mr Schultz during her marriage, ended with a divorce.
Although Letterman praised Schultz, he had him as a guest only once in 1982 when he performed an epic and exhausting routine that lasted nearly nine minutes in an early episode of “Late Night with David Letterman.” Letterman said some members of his staff didn't want to take him to the show again.
“If I fail with him, I regret it,” he said. “If I had put him on shows more frequently, his career might have been better.”
