[Dixielandjazz] Sheldon Keller Obit - Co-founder Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band

[Stephen G Barbone]

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-keller5-2008sep05,0,6147849.story 
  From the Los Angeles Times
Sheldon Keller, 85; Emmy-winning comedy writer
Keller was on the celebrated writing team on Sid Caesar's variety TV  
shows in the 1950s and was a founding member of the Beverly Hills  
Unlisted Jazz Band.
By Dennis McLellan
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 5, 2008

Sheldon Keller, an Emmy Award-winning comedy writer who was part of  
the celebrated writing team on Sid Caesar's 1950s comedy-variety TV  
show "Caesar's Hour," has died. He was 85.

Keller, who also was a founding member of the Beverly Hills Unlisted  
Jazz Band, died Monday of complications of Alzheimer's disease at his  
home in Valencia, said his son, Casey.

On "Caesar's Hour," the hourlong show that ran on NBC from 1954 to  
1957, Keller was among a group of writers whose ranks at various times  
included Mel Brooks, Larry Gelbart, Aaron Ruben, Michael Stewart, Gary  
Belkin, Mel Tolkin, Selma Diamond and Danny and Neil Simon.

Keller, who joined the show's staff in 1955 and shared three Emmy  
nominations for best comedy writing while on it, told The Times 40  
years later that working on the live show was "the best mix of terror  
and laughter."

On a staff-written comedy show such as "Caesar's Hour," Gelbart told  
The Times this week, "it's almost like a batting cage: People are  
throwing straight lines at you, and you try to hit them back with  
punch lines attached, and Shelly was very good at that. You just had  
to deliver, and he did."

In the 1960s, Keller was head writer on "The Danny Kaye Show." He also  
was a writer on the 1965 TV special "Frank Sinatra: A Man and His  
Music" and specials starring Sophia Loren and Carol Channing.

For the 1966 special "An Evening With Carol Channing," Keller shared  
an Emmy for outstanding writing achievement in variety.

In addition to writing episodes of TV series such as "Make Room for  
Daddy," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "MASH," Keller co-wrote the 1968  
comedy film "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" and was a writer on the 1973  
action movie "Cleopatra Jones."

Teamed with Gelbart, he co-wrote "Movie Movie," a 1978 satire of the  
old Hollywood double bills, which earned them the Writers Guild of  
America award for best comedy written directly for the screen.

As a producer, his credits included "The Jonathan Winters Show" in the  
late '60s, three years of Bob Hope TV specials and "House Calls," the  
1979-82 CBS sitcom.

In 1976, Keller, who played guitar and bass, joined banjo-playing  
actor George Segal and trombone-playing actor Conrad Janis in  
performing on Dinah Shore's TV talk show to promote the Segal and  
Goldie Hawn movie "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox," in which Janis  
also had a major role.

Keller enjoyed the experience so much that he, Segal and Janis began  
meeting in Keller's Nichols Canyon home for Tuesday evening jam  
sessions.

Keller dubbed the group the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band.

Janis recalled this week that eight to 22 amateur and professional  
musicians would show up, occasionally including actors Jack Lemmon on  
piano and Hal Linden on clarinet. Up to 150 people would pack into  
Keller's house to listen.

After about a year, the group started playing on Sundays at the Ginger  
Man, a Beverly Hills restaurant. "Before too long we had lines around  
the block," Janis recalled. "We stayed there 4 1/2 years."

An appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" led to the  
band's performing at Carnegie Hall as the opening act for Steve  
Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

"When you're over 50, if you have any fantasies left, you may as well  
get on with them," Keller told jazz critic Leonard Feather in 1981.

Over the years, the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band performed its  
Dixieland and swing music at hundreds of jazz festivals, as well as on  
talk shows, two PBS specials and in the 1986 movie "Nothing in Common."

Janis said Keller, who worked as a stand-up comic in the Catskills  
when he was trying to break into comedy writing in the early '50s, was  
"killingly funny and a great ad-libber" both onstage and off.

A son of Polish immigrants who had created a successful corset  
manufacturing and retail business, Keller was born in Chicago on Aug.  
20, 1923.

He attended the University of Illinois, where he appeared in college  
shows with fraternity brother Allan Sherman, who later gained fame for  
his "My Son, the Folk Singer," "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh!" and other  
spoof and song parody albums.

During World War II, Keller left the university to join the Army in  
1942 and served in the Signal Corps in the Pacific.

After the war, Keller worked in his father's corset business, married  
his wife, Bitsy (whom he later divorced), and had two children. In  
1951, he borrowed $500 from his in-laws and moved his family to New  
York City to pursue a career in comedy.

In addition to his comedy writer son, Casey, Keller is survived by his  
daughter, Jamie, and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at noon today at Hillside Memorial  
Park, 6001 W. Centinela Ave., Los Angeles.

Instead of flowers, the family suggests that donations be made to  
charities supporting Alzheimer's research.

dennis.mclellan at latimes.com