Jan 19, 2021
Today on Rarified Heir, we are talking to Adam Shawn, son of the great actor, comedian and monologist Dick Shawn. On the day we taped this podcast, we had met Adam one-week prior via a mutual at an Ernie Kovacs Centennial event at the Hollywood Heritage Museum I presented.
It’s strange that Adam and host Josh Mills had never met. Dick Shawn starred in two films with his mother Edie Adams, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “Evil Roy Slade”. What’s more Dick Shawn was a guest on his mom’s 1964 variety show “Here’s Edie”. Additionally, he starred with Ernie Kovacs in “Wake Me When It’s Over” in 1960.
Edie adored Dick Shawn. He was zany, creative and hysterically funny. He along with Phil Silvers, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar Terry-Thomas and Buddy Hackett among others brought her out of a deep depression after the death of her first husband, Comedian Ernie Kovacs when filming began on Stanley Kramer ‘s “Mad World” film in 1963.
We speak with Adam Shawn about growing up outside of Hollywood, his father’s incredible one-man show, “The Second Greatest Entertainer in the World” where Adam was stage manager and what it was like growing up where people expected you to be funny when they found out who his dad was. Much more too.
So what was it like growing up with a dad whose iconic turn in Mel Brooks “The Producers” as L.S.D. (Lorenzo St. Dubios) was one of his signature roles? Find out now on the Rarified Heir Podcast.