JOHN SIMON dies; and is REVIEWED, positively and negatively. Diana Rigg and Mort Sahl

Two famous people in the theater world died this week. Dr. Jonathan Miller got less attention, probably because he moved from comedy to "higher arts." Fewer and fewer people know what "Beyond the Fringe" means, or that at one time, in the 60's, he was part of a revolutionary comedy troup that dazzled England and then America with satire. Few seemed to know or care that Miller became a BBC producer specializing in Shakespeare revivals. He also wrote and hosted "States of Mind" for the BBC.

He passed away while in the mist of Alzheimer's. Some say death can be kind that way. Better to be clueless, and returned to childhood, than to be afflicted with ALS, for example, a slow process of body decay while the mind is alert.

The other death? John Simon (May 12, 1925 − November 24, 2019), who lived a long and active life, and suffered a very quick death. At 94, he had a stroke and that lowered the curtain. He apparently had no major health problems and was stricken while attending a social event.

The first I saw of John Simon, was when he was one of the guests on a "Dick Cavett Show" with Mort Sahl.

It started with a handshake...

But that was more like fighters touching gloves before the war. With the very first question to John Simon, the battle started, and Mort was the one heading for the canvas.

As I mentioned in my book, "The Fight for Tonight," the two became adversarial immediately. The fight was started by John Simon, who was well known for his acerbic opinions (having insulted a variety of actors, actresses and writers while writing his theater reviews).

As Jack O'Brien eulogized, "We feared him. We loathed him. We quoted him endlessly. He was ruthless. He was hilarious. And he was usually right!"

Mort's monologue, which got some hisses mixed with the chuckles, touched on Simon-esque insult:

“That whole women’s liberation thing is really incredible, when they equate words like ‘sexism’ with ‘racism.’ I’ve never met a woman who’s an intellectual. I’ve met a woman who will wanna come on with me....There are no intellectual women. They get a couple of stickers on their Volkswagen, a couple of daisies... and then they’re intellectuals. They’re really not interested in what’s going on.”

His banter with Cavett, and his stand-up spot, drew some hisses and much less chuckles. This was 1970, not 1960 when Sahl was at his peak and misogynistic jokes were welcomed. Like: "A woman's place is in the stove." Now guys like Mort, and also Norman Mailer, were encountering criticism over their macho quips.

Enter the next guest, whom Cavett noted was called "Bad John" by some. John Simon. Cavett opened by asking Simon, "Are you still in search of an intellectual woman, or do I have you confused with someone else?"

"No," he said, "as a matter of fact I've known quite a few intellectual women in my life."

Mort interrupted: "Any actresses?"

John replied, with his spiced Hungarian accent and slow, deliberate cadence,"Perhaps not, but perhaps there are probably as many intellectual women as there are intellectual ex-nightclub comedians.” This brought whistles and applause.

Mort, accustomed at zinging people on stage alone, couldn't muster much of a reply, except to say that Simon's interests were petty considering "the country's on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

As the jousting continued, with the audience on Simon's side, Sahl said, “Bad manners don’t work anywhere, even on television."

Simon's calm, measured reply: "I think, I think condemning a whole sex to the darkness of un-intellectualism isn’t exactly the best manners.” More applause for Simon. The debate ebbed and flowed, with moments of mutual agreement, and attempts (by Mort) to pin Simon and even insult him. At one point, he praised Robert Blake's courage, and implied Simon had none.

For the entire fracas, there is, of course, YouTube:

Mort Sahl vs John Simon My other early awareness of John Simon, was when he took on another favorite of mine, Diana Rigg. Around the same time as the Cavett show, Simon reviewed Rigg's play "Abelard and Heloise," which was probably selling tickets only because there was a nude scene. John Simon didn't think this was worth the ticket:

"Diana Rigg is built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses."

Years passed, and Rigg compiled an entire book of mean critical remarks: "No Turn Unstoned." She had also mentioned on a Cavett show in the 80's that her nude scenes weren't intended to show off a perfect figure. When interviewers sympathetically told her that John Simon was known for being cruel with his wit, she'd add, "Let's not forget ugly!" If she needed any back-up, she could thumb through the only slightly less caustic reviews of Roger Ebert to find him defending performers and smacking Simon: "They can't help how they look, any more than John Simon can help looking like a rat."

There's apparently no record of John Simon describing Ebert's looks. But, fat jokes are too easy.

After many decades as the feared reviewer at New York magazine, Simon was fired, probably in the name of PC purity, but perhaps so that a cheaper reviewer could be hired. John, as many veteran writers did in the days when the Internet began to take over, bounced around working for other magazines and venues, but with diminishing power. Age also was a factor. If even the respected Clive Barnes was cut loose from the New York Times, it was no surprise that in his 80's, Simon was considered old fashioned, and his complaints too stuffy and professorial.

Old theater reviews are of little interest to anyone, and marginally, old movie reviews. These days, everybody's a critic, and the proof is how few newspapers even have an arts critic, and how most people simply go to the "Rotten Tomatoes" website to see what people think of the latest film. Still, for a while, John Simon remains legend, for some of his quotable insults, and for the occasional moment in real life that was colorful, like the time an actress, following a bad Simon review, dumped her dinner on his head in a restaurant. Which might have had John agreeing, partially with Mort Sahl, that "bad manners don't work anywhere." Except it brought him even more fame and attention.