The Trials of Lenny Bruce
by Doug Linder
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lenny Bruce was the spirit of hipness2 and rebellion. His underdog, idealistic humor took on every American sacred cow, from capitalism3 to organized religion to sexual mores4. Fans were attracted to Bruce's dark sexiness and brutal5 honesty. Kenneth Tyson described Bruce as fully6, quiveringly conscious.
Bruce's rise to the status of cultural icon7 began in the mid-1950s in the strip clubs of southern California where Bruce began to develop the iconoclastic8 edginess9 that would be his trademark10. In his autobiography11, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People, Bruce described the importance of the freedom that came from the burlesque12 circuit:
Four years working in clubsthat's what really made it for meevery night: doing it, doing it, doing it, getting bored and doing different ways, no pressure on you, and all the other comedians14 are drunken bums15 who don't show up, so I could try anything.
On April 9, 1959, Bruce appeared on the nationally-televised Steve Allen Show. Allen introduced Bruce as the most shocking comedian13 of our time, a young man who is skyrocketing to fameLenny Bruce! Two years later, performing before a packed house at Carnegie Hall, Bruce delivered what biographer Albert Goldman called the greatest performance of his career.
In the fall of 1961, however, Bruce's career would begin its downward spiral. Just a week after being arrested in Philadelphia on a narcotics16 charge, Bruce was charged in San Francisco with violating California obscenity law after a late night performance at the Jazz Workshop. Police found most troubling Bruce's use of the word cocksucker, although his use of the phrase to come also became a major focus of his Jazz Workshop trial. First Amendment17 lawyer Albert Bendich represented Bruce alone, after the co-counsel he hoped would help turned him down flat saying, You can't win a case based on 'cocksucker.' Win Bendich did, however. In his opening statement Bendich told the jury that Bruce's humor was in the great tradition of social satire18, related intimately to the kind of social satire found in the works of such great authors as ArisTOPhanes and Jonathan Swift. Experts from jazz critics to literature professors were called to the stand to offer their opinions on the social importance of Bruce's iconoclastic humor. The jury heard both a tape of Bruce's full performance and Bruce's own testimony19 on his choice of words before voting to acquit20.
Despite the acquittal in San Francisco, the arrests kept coming. In 1962, Bruce was charged again with violating California's obscenity law at a performance at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. Less than two weeks later he faced charges in Chicago following a show at the Gate of Horn. Then he was arrested in Los Angeles for a performance at the Unicorn21. While the Troubadour and Unicorn trial ended in a deadlocked22 jury, Bruce was not so lucky in Illinois, where he was convicted and sentenced to a year in jail. By the summer of 1963, Bruce's troubles were mounting. While free on bond pending23 appeal of his Chicago conviction, Bruce attempted to do a show in in London, only to be taken to the airport and deported24. In June, a California court ordered Bruce confined at the State Rehabilitation25 Center in Chico for treatment of his drug addiction26. By March 1964, following yet another obscenity arrest in southern California, Bruce concluded the last refuge for his controversial brand of humor was New York City.
The Cafe Au Go Go Trial in New York City, 1964: Background
Lenny Bruce was no longer in his primeeither physically28 or artisticallyin the spring of 1964. The lean and hip1 Bruce of the 1950s had become overweight and uninspired. The pointed30 satire of his earlier routines had turned to obsessing31 over his drug busts32 and obscenity arrests. More often then ever, his critics contended, he resorted to to perverse33 shock to attract an audience. Columbia University English professor Albert Goldman complained, In the last year, he had suffered a loss of inspirationpartly attributable to ill health and emotional distressand his obscenity had begun to re百度竞价推广ble the twitching34 of a damaged muscle.
In late March, Bruce began a run at Howard and Ella Solomon's Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. about 350 people a night entered under the red domed35 canopy36 and paid from $3.50 to $10 to catch Bruce's act in the French-styled coffeehouse. Bruce, wearing a cast for a recently sprained37 ankle, would perform for about an hour on small 百度竞价推广i-circular stage.
On March 31, 1964, one of the persons in the audience, at a table one row from the stage, was a former CIA agent and now license38 inspector39 for the city of New York, Herbert Ruhe. According to Richard Kuh, the man who would later lead the prosecution40 against Bruce, Ruhe was blessed with a phenomenally well-developed memory. As Bruce performed, Ruhe busily scribbled41 down terms including jack42 me off, nice tits, and go come in a chicken. Ruhe added his own editorial comments, such as philosophical43 claptrap on human nature.
In addition to his autobiographical musings about his legal and financial problems, Bruce's show on the night of March 31 included some of his old standards that had led to earlier arrests, including To Come is a Preposition, Thank You, Mask Man, and Infidelity. The routine also included bits about two First Ladies. Bruce declared that Eleanor Roosevelt has the nicest tits of any lady in office. Commenting on captions44 relating to photos of Jacqueline Kennedy crawling on to the trunk of the convertible45 in Dallas after her husband had been shot , Bruce called the captions bullshit. In Bruce's opinion, Mrs. Kennedy hauled ass46 to save her assjust what anyone would likely do under the circumstances. In another bit called Red Hot Enema, Bruce argued that the prospect47 of putting a funnel48 up his ass containing hot lead would cause Gary Powers to quickly lose his bravado49. In Pissing in the Sink, Bruce told the tale of a man with a bad leg trying to avoid a trek50 down the hall to the bathroom. He is caught urinating in the sink by his roommate, who suggests he use the ledge51 instead. He does so, only to find himself the focus of a crowd of anxious onlookers52 and firemen who believe he's ready to commit suicide. The most outrageous54 of the bits that night was Guys Are Carnal, in which Bruce suggested that men are oversexed creatures willing to have a one night stand with just about anything that moves, including a chicken.
The next day, Inspector Ruhe submitted his report on Bruce's performance to Richard Kuh, an assistant in the office of District Attorney Frank Hogan. Following Kuh's recommendation, Hogan sent a squad55 of four officers that night to the Cafe Au Go Go to record Bruce's routine. On April 2, a typed transcript56 of the showor as much of the often unintelligible57 tape as could be made outwas presented to twenty-three grand jurors. The jury responded with an indictment58 of Bruce for violation59 of Penal60 Code 1140-A, which prohibited obscene, indecent, immoral61, and impure62 dram, play, exhibition, and entertainmentwhich would tend to the corruption63 of the morals of youth and others. For each of the three charges against him, Bruce faced a maximum punishment of three years in prison.
Shortly before Bruce's scheduled 10 P. M. performance at the Cafe Au Go Go on April 3, plainclothed officers arrested Bruce and Howard Solomon. The officers drove the two men to the Sixth Precinct headquarters, where they were booked and incarcerated64. The next night, out on bail65, Bruce returned to the Cafe Au Go Go for another performance.
The arrest of Bruce in New York sparked a firestorm of protest from the city's intellectual community. Poet Allen Ginsberg announced formation of an Emergency Committee against the Harassment66 of Lenny Bruce. Over eighty prominent people, mostly entertainers and authors, signed a petition protesting the prosecution of Bruce: Whether we regard Bruce as a moral spokesman or simply as an entertainer, we believe he should be allowed to perform free from censorship or harassment. Signers of the petition included Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, John Updike, James Baldwin, George Plimpton, Henry Miller67, Joseph Heller, Gore68 Vidal, and Woody Allen.
The Trial
Bruce hired as his attorney Ephraim London, one of the nation's leading First Amendment lawyers, and a man who would argue successfully nine free speech cases before the United States Supreme69 Court. London landed an intense, young associate in the person of Martin Garbus, a fan of Bruce's work. Garbus saw the arrests of Bruce as public exercises of hypocrisy70. In Garbus's mind, Bruce faced prosecution because of his attacks on religion and public figures, rather than because of his use of dirty words.
Prosecutor71 Richard Kuh saw things very differently. To Kuh, Bruce's show consisted of cumulatively72 nauseating73 word pictures interspersed74 with all the three- and four-letter words and more acrid75 ten- and twelve-letter hyphenated ones, spewed directly at the audience. Kuh believed the performances were unredeemed by any artistry or cogent76 social criticism.
A largely beat audience turned up at the Criminal Courts Building for the opening of the Cafe Au Go Go trial on June 16, 1964. To accommodate the large crowd, the trial was moved to a larger courtroom with twenty-foot high ceilings. The trial would be before a three-judge court, not a jury. The presiding judge was John Murtagh, who dominated his two colleagues and ran the trial as if they were not there.
The prosecution's key witness was Inspector Ruhe, who described what he had heard and seen during his visit to the Cafe Au Go Go. Ruhe perspired77 heavily and seemed nervous on the stand. At first, every time he repeated a dirty word he seemed embarrassed, but as his testimony went along he seemed more comfortable. Reading from notes taken at the nightclub, Ruhe delivered a sort of butchered performance of Bruce's routine as the comedian, dressed in a black tunic78 and sporting a new beard, suffered silently. Bruce worried, I'm going to be judged by his bad timing79, his ego80, his garbled81 language. Most upsetting to Bruce was Ruhe's suggestion that he had slid his hands up and down the microphone in a masturbatory gesture. I would never do anything like that, Bruce protested to Garbus.
In addition to Inspector Ruhe, the prosecution called police officers who attended performances at the Cafe Au Go Go and talked to either Bruce or Solomon afterwards. Kuh also introduced audiotapes of Bruce's two performances on the night of April 7. After just three days of testimony, the prosecution rested.
The next day, Bruce was hospitalized with pleurisy and the defense83 was granted an adjournment84. In the hospital, Bruce obsessed85 over his case. He read law books from cover to cover, sometimes complaining to his lawyers about their omitting from arguments cases he considered of special importance to his case. He also listened to tapes he had made of trial testimony, recorded on a device he smuggled86 into the courtroom in a gray attach case.
When the trial reconvened on June 30, the defense moved to dismiss on the grounds that the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence to prove a violation of Penal Code Section 1140. Defense lawyers strenuously88 contended that the prosecution's case rested largely on Bruce's coarse language, and that Supreme Court precedent89 required the prosecution to show that the defendant's words had inspired lustful90 and lecherous91 thoughts. The Court denied the defense motion. Justice Randall Creel dissented92, saying that although he found Bruce's performance distasteful, he did not think it made the grade as to hard-core pornography.
The defense's case rested heavily on the testimony of expert witnesses. The list of defense witnesses included psychiatric witnesses , New York media experts , and critics .
No defense witness made a stronger impression than did newspaper columnist93 and What's My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen. Defense lawyers contacted Kilgallen because she had previously94 written favorable reviews of Bruce's work, but was prim27 in manner and not a person associated with the avant-garde. Garbus thought Kilgallen's testimony would be especially persuasive95 because she was considered by man to be a spokesperson for the more prudish96 elements of the entertainment world. Kilgallen appeared cool and unruffled on the stand as she testified that she had enormous respect for Bruce. Kilgallen described Bruce as a brilliant satirist97, perhaps the most brilliant that I have ever seen. She said his social commentary, whether I agree with it or not, is extremely valid98 and important, and I have enjoyed his acts on several occasions. Garbus asked Kilgallen about Bruce's use of dirty words:
Garbus: Miss Kilgallen, in the transcripts99 the words motherfucker, cocksucker, fuck, shit, ass are found, isn't that correct?
Kilgallen: Yes.
Garbus: Is there an artistic29 purpose in the use of language as set forth100 in these transcripts in evidence?
Kilgallen: In my opinion there is.
Garbus: In what way?
Kilgallen: Well, I think that Lenny Bruce, as a nightclub performer, employs these words the way James Baldwin or Tennessee Williams or playwrights101 employ them on the Broadway stagefor emphasis or because that is the way that people in a given situation would talk. They would use those words.
Forrest Johnson, a Presbyterian minster who happened to attend Bruce's April 1 performance at the Cafe Au Go also testified that he didn't consider the comedian's use of taboo102 words to be inappropriate. On cross-examination, Kuh asked Johnson whether he thought Bruce's might have violated a Biblical command:
Kuh: Would you say the phrase, and you'll excuse me, Reverend, for using this language, but the phrase motherfucker is in accord with that Commandment [the Fourth Commandment, Honor thy Father and thy Mother]?
Johnson: I don't think the term motherfucker has any relationship to that Commandment
Kuh: To the uninitiated, to the unsophisticated, to persons other than reverends, Mr. Johnson, might someone understand the word motherfucker as having to do with mothers and fucking?
Village Voice entertainment critic Nat Hentoff, who had reviewed Bruce and seen him perform at least forty times, testified both as to the social value of Bruce's humor and its having little in the way of a titillating103 effect on audiences:
Garbus: Can you tell us if you were in any way titillated104 by Mr. Bruce's performances?
Hentoff: Nonor have the audiences that have been presentIt's like a shock of recognition, very effective.
Garbus: Would it be fair to say Mr. Bruce's performances are primarily concerned with arousing sexual thoughts?
Hentoff: He is certainly concerned in making people think in sexual terms, I would say, in a rather snickering way.
Garbus: Is that the purpose of Mr. Bruce's performances?
Hentoff: That is absolutely not the purpose of Mr. Bruce's performances.
Two professors appeared as defense witnesses. Daniel Dodson, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia, described Bruce has having the moral outrage53 characteristic of all great satirists. Dodson testified that Bruce very effectively satirized105 the pomposity106, the ridiculousness, the hypocrisy of our society in the great tradition of Swift and Rabelais. Dodson noted107 that Jonathan Swift, in his Gulliver's Travels, had an excremental108 obsessionwhen he wrote the last section of Gulliver's Travels. The other academic expert for the defense was eminent109 sociologist110 Herbert Gans. Gans testified that the dirty words used by Bruce in his performance were in daily use-as words of anger or accusationin many American communities, even in mixed company.
Prosecutor Richard Kuh complained of the difficulty in rounding up prosecution experts to counter those presented by the defense. According to Kuh, few of the many who privately111 condemned112 Bruce's performances had the moral courage to declare themselves squares. One who was willing to do so, and who appeared as a rebuttal witness for the prosecution, was social critic and frequent New Yorker contributor, Marya Mannes. In her testimony, Mannes labeled the use of obscenities as the last resort of the comedian and distinguished113 Bruce's use of obscenities from the more appropriate use of those words by great authors such as Edward Albee in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In Mannes's opinion, Bruce's use of obscenities added none of the realism, drama, or insight into character that Albee's use did. Daniel Potter, executive director of the Protestant Council of New York, took the stand to speculate that Bruce's offensive use of words and images wouldif, anything, incite114 and increase the feelings of hostility115 toward others in the community. John Fischer, editor-in-chief of Harpers, echoed the opinion of other prosecution experts that Bruce's material had no social value and seemed, in fact, rather incoherent. New York Daily News columnist Robert Sylvester called Bruce unique among comedians in the extent of his use of vulgar words.
The most extreme criticism of Bruce came from sociologist Ernst Van den87 Haag, who described Bruce's routines as a sort of verbal diarrheainstead of defecating on a stage in a literal sense, he does it through orality. Van den Haag suggested that the wards82 of a mental hospital might be the only community that would view Bruce's act as acceptable. On cross-examination, London called into question Van den Haag's credibility as an expert on contemporary community standards by forcing him to admit that he hadn't been to a nightclub in twenty years.
After Van den Haag left the stand and the people rested, Lenny Bruce stood up and announced, Your honor, at this time, I would like to ask the court to allow me to speak. Bruce complained that there is evidence withheld116 from the court that he wanted to provide. Judge Murtagh called a short recess117 to allow London to discuss the matter with his client. London was determined118 to not let Bruce testifyto the point of packing his briefcase119 and preparing to leave the courtroom before Bruce finally gave up on his request.
Verdict and Sentencing
The court did not announce its verdict in the Bruce trial for another 99 days. Bruce spent some of the intervening period firing his lawyer and writing a bizarre letter to Judge Murtagh. The letter included Bruce's analysis of the of the literal and contemporary usage of his purple vocabulary condemned by the state. Bruce told the judge that Ninety-eight percent of the words I used are correct words in Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Bruce ended his missive by claiming that his desire was not contemptcommunication is my desire.
November 4, 1964 was decision day. With his dismissed lawyers absent, Bruce stood to ask the court to reopen his case. He told the judges that he wanted the chance to explain that the alleged120 masturbatory gestures were really the gestures of benedictionI did a bit on Catholicism. He begged the court, Please let me testifyLet me tell you what the show is about. He seemed increasingly desperate:
Don't finish me off in show business. Don't lock up these six thousand words. That's what you're doing, taking away my words, locking them up. These plays can never be said again. You are finishing me up in show business.
Judge Murtagh had had enough. We must conclude now these proceedings, he said sternly. He announced the court's judgment121, finding both Lenny Bruce and club owner Howard Solomon guilty as charged. The court's per curium opinion concluded that Bruce's act appealed to prurient122 interest, was patently offensive to the average person in the community, and lacked redeeming123 social importance. One of the three judges, Judge Creel, dissented.
On December 16, Bruce, wearing a blue-striped T-shirt over worn blue dungarees, entered Courtroom 535 for the last time. Judge Murtagh asked the standard question, Is there any reason why sentence should not now be imposed? Bruce started to give his reasonsand the reasons continued for an hour and two minutes. He told Judge Murtagh he might be a bit biased124. He accused Richard Kuh of perjury125 for his distortion of his performance. He claimed to have new evidence that required his acquittal. He rambled126 on about Supreme Court obscenity decisions, even quoting Justice Holmes. Finally, he asked the judges to just hear my act once.
Murtagh sentenced Bruce to four months in the workhouse. Bruce remained free on bond during the appeal of his conviction. But Bruce would never see his final vindication127 from the appellate courts. As he obsessed over his legal problems and devoted128 most of his time to the filing of civil suits against his tormentors, prosecutors129 and judges, Bruce got heavier and sicker and more pathetic. On August 3, 1966, Bruce died of a morphine overdose in his home in Hollywood Hills, California. In 1970, New York's highest court affirmed a lower appellate court's reversal of Howard Solomon's conviction.
After Bruce's death, one of his New York prosecutors, Assistant District Attorney Vincent Cuccia, expressed regret over his role:
I feel terrible about Bruce. We drove him into poverty and bankruptcy130 an then murdered him. I watched him gradually fall apart. It's the only thing I did in Hogan's office that I'm really ashamed of. We all knew what we were doing. We used the law to kill him.
POSTscript131:
In May 2003, a group of persons concerned about the fact that Bruce's 1964 conviction in the Cafe Au Go Go trial remains132 on the books launched a campaign to convince New York Governor George Pataki to issue Bruce a posthumous133 pardon. The group includes scholars, lawyers, and entertainers such as Robin134 Williams, Dick Smothers135, and Margaret Cho. In a letter to Pataki, the group argued that a pardon of Bruce would show the state's commitment to freedomfree speech, free press, and free thinking. On December 23, 2003, Governor Pataki pardoned Bruce. It was the first posthumous pardon granted in the state's history. Governor Pataki described the pardon as a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment.
The pardon effort is being spearheaded by two authors of the recent and comprehensive book on the Bruce trials , Ronald Collins and David Skover. For more information on the pardon effort, see: Pardon Lenny Bruce.
The Trials of Lenny Bruce: The Fall and Rise of an American Icon by Ronald Collins and David Skover was the most important source for information contained in this account. Other books on which this account is based include Ready for the Defense by Martin Garbus, Foolish Figleaves? Pornography inand out ofCourt by Richard Kuh, Lenny Bruce: The Making of a Prophet by William Thomas, and Lenny Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
