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Although his fame afforded him the finest of luxuries, during every return visit to his South Philly roots, Joey Bishop required one thing.
"He’d call up 16th and Oregon, Victor the barber," DJ Jerry Blavat, a former resident of 15th and McKean streets and 17th and Mifflin streets who was a friend of Bishop’s, said. "He loved the way he cut his hair. Whenever he was in Philadelphia, Victor was the guy that cut his hair."
The comedian never broke his ties to the old neighborhood — always happy to come across people in show business boasting the same ZIP code — right up until his death from health complications Oct. 17. Bishop was 89.
Bishop will forever be remembered as a part of the Rat Pack — of which he was the last surviving member — alongside Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford. Blavat and singer Al Martino both said it was Bishop that drew in the laughs.
"He was the stabilizer," Blavat, who met Bishop in 1960 when he became a performer, said. "He wrote the one-liners for them. He was the comedic entr�e to the act; people didn’t realize it but Joey was the one writing those lines they’d throw on stage."
Martino agreed, and added Bishop’s knack for one-liners was mimicked by many others.
"Most of these guys were influenced by Joey," he said of comedians in the ’50s and ’60s. "He was not only a comic, but also a writer. He wrote a lot of lines, and his jokes were very funny and amusing especially to people in show business — they thought he was a genius when it came to writing."
Martino, who started working with Bishop in ’52, lives about a mile from the home where Bishop died in Newport Beach, Calif., and said they saw each other frequently.
"He was at my house for dinner three times a week," Martino said. "He liked my cooking, but he wasn’t too crazy about his.
"He was still using one-liners. But he never laughed at anything given to him; it never stood up to what he said. If you came out with a line, he always came out with another. It was impossible to have dinner with him without witty one-liners."
Martino, who lived at 15th and Tasker streets, never knew Bishop growing up because venturing from his corner would have been like "living on another planet," but Blavat confirms Bishop was a hometown boy from the start.
"We looked at Joey as just a neighborhood guy," Blavat said, "and all of a sudden he’s with Frank, Dean and Sammy."
Bishop used his success to help Blavat by inviting him on "The Joey Bishop Show" several times.
"When we all got into show biz, Joey was already a star," he said, referencing friends like Frankie Avalon. "We looked up to him. When he got a network show, he had us all on. It was easier to get on his show than on Johnny Carson’s."
When Blavat did come on, the two would reminisce, especially about the food back home.
"He was a great fan of South Philly," he said. "I can’t talk about how many times he’d talk about Tastykakes."
Born Feb. 3, 1918, Joseph Abraham Gottlieb’s father operated a bicycle shop on Moyamensing Avenue near Fourth Street and Snyder Avenue, a few steps from their home at 332 Snyder Ave. Both are still standing, the store having been converted into a home, but its residents could be reached for comment. After going all the way to the 12th grade at South Philadelphia High School, Gottlieb dropped out just before graduation, turning to the stage by putting on stand-up with two friends as the Bishop Trio, coined after the last name of their driver. When the three separated in the late ’30s, Gottlieb kept the name.
In ’52, Joey Bishop’s big break came when Sinatra brought him on as an opener at the Riviera club in New Jersey. Soon Bishop was on the move, traveling across the country and immersed in the nightclub scene in Miami, New York, Chicago and Las Vegas.
The next step was TV, making guest appearances on the game show "Keep Talking" and "The Jack Paar Show." In ’61 he got his own headlining gig with "The Joey Bishop Show" on NBC, where he played the assistant to a Hollywood press agent. Producers switched up the plot with Bishop playing a talk show host before cancellation in ’65.
Two years later, fiction became fact and he was given his own late night talk show on ABC, also known as "The Joey Bishop Show." Going up against "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" was brutal, but Bishop’s legacy lives on as he gave Regis Philbin his first taste of the limelight on network television. The show was canceled two years later.
Even with his own show falling by the wayside, late night television hadn’t seen the last of Bishop as he filled Carson’s shoes a record 205 times.
Bishop’s style also worked on the silver screen. He made several films, including "Ocean’s Eleven" in ’60 and ’58’s "The Naked and the Dead" (which inspired his famed quip, "I played both roles"). His filmography stretches through the mid-’90s, including ’90’s "Betsy’s Wedding," with his last in ’96.
Through it all, Bishop’s style of comedy remains unique.
"Joey was very witty, very laid back," Blavat said. "He patterned his style after Jack Benny — he’d throw one line at you and just look and stare, and wait for reaction with a deadpan face. But he would accentuate his line whereas Jack Benny would just give the line and do a double take.
"Comedy began to change. Younger comedians were doing different things, using more risqu� language that pros would never use. You would never hear Joey Bishop using language you hear on TV today. He did a lot of dinner shows, where people would bring their entire family. If you said something dirty it just was unheard of."
As the comedic world continued to shift, Blavat said, Bishop went into "semi-retirement." Yet, he still made it a point to return to where it all started.
"He was always connected to South Philly," Martino said. "It never left him. He lived [in California] geographically, but his heart was back there."
Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga in ’41, a union that lasted until her death in ’99. He is survived by a son, Larry.
