Diceman's mentality was blue-collar all the way. He became the "Guido" type that Manhattanites deride for their weekly Saturday night incursions into their island from outposts like Bayonne and Newark. In 1980, he moved to Los Angeles, where he caught the eye of Comedy Store owner Mitzi Shore, who gave the budding comic, a Brooklyn Jew, an opportunity to work on his metamorphosis into the Italian "Diceman" persona with the street-tough voice and cock-of-the-walk attitude. In his early stand-up days in New York comedy clubs, Clay carved out a comedy niche of misogynistic humor, which got plenty of laughs from women. Thinking back on it today, it's hard to believe the act ever existed, much less at the highest level of the business. The network honchos apparently didn't dig the jokes about "banging fat girls." His act, built around misogyny, racism, and a gay-unfriendly macho pose, just wasn't built to last. In 1989, Clay became the first person to get banned by MTV the previous year. Three decades ago, Andrew "Dice" Clay, born Andrew Clay Silverstein, was the biggest comic in the world for the shortest time ever.īy the time the now 61-year-old comic who'd come to be known as Diceman packed the house at MSG, he was already well on his way to having an episode of E! True Hollywood Story dedicated to his fall. But even if you remember him, you probably didn't recognize the first comedian ever to sell out Madison Square Garden, which he did in February, 1990 for two nights in a row. If you saw Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born, you probably noticed a solid performance from the actor who played the doting father of Lady Gaga’s character.
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