Listen to us Saturday nights/Sunday mornings. Between the hours of Midnight and 6AM Eastern Standard Time.

PC's Listen Here
Macs Listen here

      Lenny Bruce

   Comedian, Writer, Social Critic/Satirist Lenny Bruce was born Leonard Alfred Schneider on October 13, 1925 in Mineola, Long Island, New York.  His parents divorced when he was 5, so he moved in and out of relatives' houses until he was about 15.  After finding a bit of stability from working on a family-owned farm, he joined the US Navy at age 17.  Lenny would be on active duty in Europe until he was discharged in 1946

His mother Sally Marr, a stage performer, was a significant influence on him. In 1947, Leonard Schneider would change his surname to Bruce. He only earned $12 and a spaghetti dinner for his first stand-up performance in Brooklyn, NY. That would lead to his break on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts Show, doing impressions of movie actors. His impressions weren't the greatest, so he turned his act in a different direction.

In 1951 he was arrested for impersonating a priest and soliciting donations for a leper colony in British Guiana through his legally chartered 'Brother Mathias Foundation.' He was never found guilty as his 'foundation' was legally chartered, the leper colony really did exist and the local clergy could not expose him as an imposter.

Bruce's career included writing screenplays for 'Dance Hall Racket,' 'Dream Follies' and 'The Rocket Man.' He released four albums of comedy routines on Fantasy Records. In 1961 he was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco for saying 'cocksucker' and talking about the verb 'come' in a sexual context. Though acquitted of the charges, he was watched more carefully by law enforcement. It wasn't long before he was arrested twice on drug charges. Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan targeted Bruce and arrested him for obscenity violations in 1964. After a 6-month trial Bruce and Howard Soloman, owner of the club Bruce was arrested at, were convicted of obscenity charges. Bruce was sentenced to 4 months in the workhouse, but died before an appeal could be decided. Soloman's conviction was eventually overturned in 1970. Bruce received a pardon some 37 years later, after a petition by many stars, including Robin Williams.

Amid all this turmoil, Bruce would include his court and police problems as part of his routine, complaining about fascism, ascerting he was denied his right to free speech. This would lead to much more close scrutiny by law enforcement and eventually he was banned from performing in many U.S. cities and Sydney, Australia. By 1966 he was actually blacklisted from performing in virtually every comedy club in the United States.

August 3, 1966 Leonard Alfred Schneider AKA 'Lenny Bruce' died of a morphine overdose. He is survived by his daughter Kitty Bruce.