Robert Schimmel: an appreciation

With all comedian Robert Schimmel lived through during his 60 years, his death yesterday from injuries suffered last week in a car crash comes as a cruel joke.

He had somehow endured the death of an 11 year-old son to cancer, a heart attack and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and was hoping for a liver transplant due to the cirrhosis that had developed out of hepatitis C, contacted from a blood transfusion during a hernia operation while serving in the Air Force in 1968.

He was a slight man to begin with, and as his bandaged mug shot showed, seemingly incapable physically of the allegations of domestic violence for which he was arrested last year--though no charges were ever filed. It was another ordeal--the only one of many that he refused to joke about: "Domestic violence is never funny, and I don’t’ want anybody to think I find any humor in it whatsoever,” he said in an interview in January, following what ended up being his final appearance on The Howard Stern Show.

Because Stern's show is on satellite, Robert could let loose with the uproarious deadpan Triple X-rated material that left his nightclub and paycable audiences falling over themselves laughing. But "raunchy," "foulmouthed," "controversial," words now being used to describe his humor that are no doubt true, don't even touch the surface of his comedic artistry--let alone humanity.

"Both as a comedian and as a father, Robert Schimmel was brilliant," says Bob Merlis, the veteran music publicist who signed him to Warner Bros. Records in 1996 and executive-produced his albums Robert Schimmel Comes Clean, If You Buy This CD I Can Get This Car, and Unprotected.

"While his comedy was certainly cutting edge, it was humane rather than cruel," Merlis adds. "He was the butt of his own jokes and lampooned his own foibles and unique circumstance; he never victimized others with his humor and that was something that drew me to him almost immediately. Above all else, he loved his kids and was always deeply involved in their lives through good times and bad. Robert was a friend whose talent, compassion and humanity I shall miss for the rest of my life."

Robert leaves behind children from two marriages, including two who were conceived against astronomical odds following his illnesses and treatments. But two weeks ago he conceded via Facebook that he was "down physically, and mentally" after custody of them was awarded to his ex-wife due to his health condition (though he did get liberal visitation rights)--and the realization "that without a transplant, I might not see [his 11 year-old son's]12th birthday."

But he also said that he had some ideas for an animated project, a video blog, written blog, and a G-rated audio version of his book Cancer on $5 A Day* *(Chemo Not Included): How Humor Got Me Through The Toughest Journey Of My Life.

Indeed, Robert Schimmel was never-say-die. And in happier times, he would screen toward the end of his shows emaciated pictures of himself in the cancer ward undergoing treatment.

"He used his comedy to help other people," says veteran standup (and audience warm-up/talent coordinator for The David Letterman Show) Eddie Brill. "When he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's, he was able to talk about it onstage and make people laugh, and by doing that they were able to talk about it out loud. Up until that point they couldn’t--and he became a spokesman for all people suffering from cancer and their families."

Robert, adds Brill, "would have audiences bring in CDs, and then he'd go to hospitals and give them out to cancer patients. And on his own he would buy CD players for them so they had music and comedy to listen to."

Interviewed after the January Stern appearance, Robert took took a call from his close friend Phil Stevens, who was himself being treated in a Chicago hospital.

“He’s been as important to me as chemo and radiation,” said Stevens, who had told Robert that Cancer On $5 A Day had saved his life—and had encouraged him to reveal to the Stern Show his need for a liver.

“He said, ‘You can help a lot of people with cancer by talking about it’—and it’s a big deal to keep it secret,” Robert added. “There’s such a negative stigma attached to liver disease: You’re either an alcoholic or an IV drug user--or it’s gay sex!”

But he made clear that neither his cancer—which was in remission—nor cirrhosis, had defeated him.

“I’m still Robert Schimmel,” he said. “They took away my hair and my work, but they didn’t touch my heart and my faith in humanity.”

For Brill, Robert was not only "one of most enlightened and vulnerable comics I've ever known," but the most generous man as well.

"Like I said earlier on Facebook, when I was a young comic, he stipulated contractually that I would be the person to open for him on the road," says Brill. "One time a club owner said he didn't know Eddie Brill and wasn't sure about putting him on the bill, so Robert said, 'If you don't like him, you can take his pay out of mine.' I ended up going back two months later as a headliner!"

Robert would end his laugh-riot shows on a serious note. Recognizing more than most the value of time, he downshifted to stone sober and said how much it meant to him that his audience had chosen to spend the last 90 minutes or so listening to him--an hour and a half of their lives that they could never get back.

Surely no one who ever spent an evening with Robert Schimmel ever felt short-changed. At the very least they can now find some solace in having once invested so wisely.