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October 8, 1999/28 Tishri 5760, Vol. 52, No.6
Behind the act, comic says he's 'just a regular guy'
TAMI BICKLEY
Staff Writer
If raunchy jokes and foul language offend you, stand-up comic Robert Schimmel's act will make you squirm. But when Schimmel walks off-stage, he leaves behind his sexual sarcasm and crass attitude and becomes "just a regular guy" who adores his family and shops at Toys 'R' Us for his children.
At 48, Bronx-born Schimmel has already lived through enough triumph and tragedy to last a lifetime. In 1980, he worked as a stereo salesman in the Valley where he lived with his wife, Vicki, and their then-only daughter, Jessica. Schimmel's sister, Sandy, who lives in Scottsdale, secretly entered Schimmel in amateur night at the Improv in Tempe because Schimmel had always loved making people laugh, he says. On amateur night, he elicited enough laughs to prompt the club's owner to invite him to perform at the Improv anytime in the future.
"That's all I had to hear," recalls Schimmel in a telephone interview from his Scottsdale home. "I came home and told my wife, 'We're leaving for Hollywood.' ... Truthfully, if my wife would have said, 'No, you can't do this,' I wouldn't have. But she said I should try it. After all, I could have always gotten another job as a stereo salesman. It's not like I was giving up a law degree to go do stand-up." As it turns out, Schimmel bought a house in Los Angeles, but now has a second residence in Scottsdale, where Vicki; Jessica, now 21 and a student at University of Arizona; his daughter Aliyah, 8; and son Jacob, 8 months, live.
Since Schimmel began performing stand-up around the country 19 years ago, his career has blossomed. He has released two compact discs produced by Warner Bros. - "Robert Schimmel Comes Clean" in 1997 and "If You Buy This CD, I Can Get This Car," in 1999, with liner notes written by comedian Steve Martin. Schimmel has appeared as a guest comic on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and on Howard Stern's syndicated radio talk show. He was voted "Stand-Up Comic of the Year" in March 1999 at the 13th annual American Comedy Awards and is awaiting the release of his first HBO special, the one-hour "Robert Schimmel: Unprotected," about all of the women in his life, which will premiere Nov. 13. In addition, he recently signed a development deal with 20th Century Fox television for a 30-minute comedy series for the 2000-01 season, in which he will star.
The national notoriety will not stop Schimmel from doing what he loves best - night club stand-up comedy. Which means he will continue his frequent shows in the Valley. He will headline at Tempe's Improv Thursday, Oct. 14, through Sunday, Oct. 17.
"I will always do stand-up comedy no matter what," he says, "because stand-up comedy is truly the last bastion of free speech."
And anyone who has seen or heard a Schimmel show knows that he rarely holds back. His jokes are permeated with references to sex, his grammar littered with expletives. And although he draws a full house, he acknowledges that not everyone approves of his act.
"If someone would come over to me after a show and say, 'That was totally disgusting,' the first thing I would say to them is, 'Then why are you still here?' " he says. Audiences are often treated to private details of Schimmel's life. His wife, for instance, stars in many of his jokes. But unlike a handful of other male comics, Schimmel stays within the boundaries of respecting others.
"There are comics who talk about women in a degrading way, but I can't do that," he says. "I am surrounded by women in my own household, and I wouldn't want anybody talking about them like that. So in my jokes, I'm always the victim. It's a lot more palatable that way and a lot more honest."
There is another line Schimmel draws - he never jokes about terminal illnesses. His refusal to do so stems from the lowest point of his personal life. In 1985, Shimmel's 4-year-old son, Derek, was diagnosed with cancer that doctors said would kill him within six months. Despite the grim prognosis, Derek lived for eight more years, then died at age 12. Schimmel says the reality that he was losing his child hit him hardest when he went, of all places, to see a comedy act one evening when Derek was still alive.
"I was watching the comedian, and out of nowhere, he started talking about cancer for 15 minutes on stage," Schimmel recalls. "Instead of laughing and really enjoying this guy, I was transported to the reality that I had a little boy who had cancer and I was totally helpless. I had been praying to God every night to perform some kind of miracle, and here was someone making fun of it on stage. I had to leave the showroom because I began to have an anxiety attack.
"I decided that night that I never wanted to do that to anybody. There are other kinds of laughs you can get through a lot of other (subjects) without having to talk about death or (diseases). There is always going to be a chance that someone in the audience will have just lost someone to (illness) or knows someone who is going through it."
Schimmel says he also does not tell ethnic jokes, perhaps because his parents, Otto and Betty Schimmel of Scottsdale, are Jewish Holocaust survivors. Betty Schimmel recently published a book of her experiences in war-torn Hungary and in a concentration camp titled "To See You Again" (Dutton Publishing, $23.95). Schimmel was raised Jewishly, and lived on a kibbutz in Israel from 1972-73. He explains that his daughter, Aliyah, is named after the word aliyah, which means immigration to Israel.
Although he says Judaism doesn't necessarily play a part in his comedy acts, other aspects of his life do.
"The best comedy comes from real life," he explains. "If you talk about something that's totally contrived, it's never going to be as good or touch anybody like real life will."
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