Early Life
Youngman was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, England, and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when he was young. He grew up in New York City, and his career as a comedian began after he had worked for a number of years at a print shop, where he penned and published a large number of "comedy cards"—cards containing one-line gags that were sold at the shop. The comedy cards were discovered by up-and-coming professional comedian Milton Berle, who encouraged Youngman and formed a close working friendship with him. Berle quipped about his friend, "The only thing funnier than Henny's jokes is his violin playing."
Read more about this topic: Henny Youngman
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten in the age of perversions of Dewey-style education: everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.”
—Gerald Early (b. 1952)
“There are in life such confluences of circumstances that render the reproach that we are not Voltaires most inopportune.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)