In the early 1960s, Lenny Bruce became the poster child for comedians getting arrested. Between 1961 and 1964, Bruce got hit with multiple obscenity charges and was found guilty on a couple of different occasions. But Bruce was far from the first comic to face legal repercussions for his act. If you can believe it, some comedians managed to find themselves on the wrong side of the law when Bruce was just a kid. Here are a few instances you might not have heard about.
3. MARTY WAYNE
In June 1946, a long-forgotten nightclub comic by the name of Marty Wayne was sentenced to six months in jail for what news reports referred to as his “purple passages.” In other words, Wayne was found guilty of “presenting obscene shows” at a couple of local entertainment venues in the Philadelphia area. What that entailed obviously couldn’t be printed in those days, but Judge Harry S. McDevitt of the Quarter Sessions Court issued a stern warning to club owners at the time, saying, “If you have to get into the gutter and present filthy shows, you might as well give up.” Both proprietors were fined a whopping $25.13 and told to ask for a script before letting anyone perform moving forward.
2. W.C. FIELDS
By 1928, W.C. Fields was a major Broadway star, renowned for his unique comedy sketches that would soon be adapted for the big screen. In one such sketch that year, a canary was made to appear as though it was flying out of a man’s mouth and proceeded to venture up into the wings of the theater afterward. Two police officers with ties to the Humane Society arrested Fields on charges of animal cruelty, alleging that the bird had flown into the scenery and died from its injuries. A judge later pinned the canary’s death on the officers for improperly handling it on the way out of the theater; in particular, he said that the thick smoke that came out of the newsmen’s cameras during the ensuing media circus was likely responsible.
1. MAE WEST
On February 9, 1927, Mae West went backstage after performing in the Broadway play Sex (in which she played a prostitute), only to be surrounded by officers from New York City’s vice squad. Two months later, West was charged with obscenity and “behavior designed to corrupt the morals of youth.” She served eight days of a ten day sentence in a workhouse on what’s now Roosevelt Island, where she claimed to have dined with the warden. West later said that the jail time was worth the publicity and credited it with giving her career a significant boost.
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