Remembering Bernie Sahlins, Richard Matheson, Jerome Karle, Jiroemon Kimura, Ben Tucker

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• published: 12 Jul 2013
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The Wellspring Of Improv Comedy SECOND CITY, TELEVISION'S GREATEST SCI-FI WRITER, X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY,THE OLDEST MAN, AND I'M COMING HOME Much of today's improvisational comedy comes from Second City, the club Bernie Sahlins put together the 1950's. From Saturday Night Live to The Onion, a debt is owed to the comedy concepts he pioneered with people like Elaine May and Mike Nichols. Richard Matheson was television's greatest science fiction writer, and he was also responsible for works such ass I Am Legend, which became The Omega Man, and The Shrinking Man, which was turned into a great 1950's sci-fi movie. Jerome Karle pioneered X-Ray crystallography and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985. Jiroemon Kimura was the world's oldest man, one of the few remaining people born in the 19th Century. Ben Tucker was a jazz bassist who wrote a familiar jazz standard. The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise that originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959[1] and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City has produced television programs in both the United States and Canada including SCTV, Second City Presents, and Next Comedy Legend. Since its debut, the Second City has consistently been a starting point for comedians, award winning actors, directors, and others in show business. A number of well-known performers began careers as part of the historic troupe and later moved to television and film. In 1973, Second City opened a theater in Toronto. By the mid-1970s, both venues became a source of cast members for Saturday Night Live and SCTV, which borrowed many of the writing and performing techniques pioneered by Second City and other improv groups. In 1983, the adjoining e.t.c. theater became the second resident stage in Old Town, Chicago location, handling overflow crowds and increasing the number of resident company members. Co-founder Bernard Sahlins owned the theater company until 1985, before selling it to Andrew Alexander and Len Stuart. Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 -- June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He may be known best as the author of I Am Legend, a 1954 horror novel that has been adapted for the screen three times, although five more of his novels have been adapted as major motion pictures: The Shrinking Man, Hell House, What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return (filmed as Somewhere in Time), and A Stir of Echoes. Matheson also wrote numerous television episodes of The Twilight Zone for Rod Serling, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel". He later adapted his 1971 short story "Duel" as a screenplay which was promptly directed by a young Steven Spielberg, for the TV movie of the same name. Jerome Karle (born Jerome Karfunkle; June 18, 1918 - June 6, 2013) was an American physical chemist. Jointly with Herbert A. Hauptman, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985, for the direct analysis of crystal structures using X-ray scattering techniques Starting in 1943, after completing graduate studies, Karle worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago with his wife Dr. Isabella Karle, one of the youngest scientists and few women on the project. In 1944, they returned to the University of Michigan, where Karle worked on a project for the United States Naval Research Laboratory. In 1946, they moved to Washington, D.C. to work for the Naval Research Laboratory. Musician Ben Tucker performed with stars from Quincy Jones to Peggy Lee before he settled in the 1970s in Savannah, where the jazz bassist became one of the Georgia city's best-known working musicians.