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      Adam Sandler Grows Up (Mostly)

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      At 56, the formerly juvenile funnyman has matured into a subtler, more nuanced comedy performer. It’s why the “Murder Mystery” films work so well.“I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m so sad,” wails Howard Ratner, voice choked up, tears streaming down his cheeks, a wad of tissue stuffed inside his bloody nose. “I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to do. Everything I do is not going right.”Howard, played with frazzled, manic intensity by Adam Sandler, is at the end of his rope. At this point in the gambling drama “Uncut Gems,” the Diamond District jeweler is in leagues of debt, and his one final, desperate hope to raise cash — a gem auction — has just failed spectacularly. Roughed up by the guys he owes, he turns to his mistress, Julia (Julia Fox), for consolation.“Unzip my skirt,” she tells him consolingly. Turning around, she reveals that she’s had his name tattooed in cursive on her backside. “It says ‘Howie’!” she exclaims.“I don’t deserve it!” Howard moans. After a pause, the Jewish New Yorker thinks to add, “You can’t even get buried with me now!”Recent Sandler films, including “Murder Mystery” and its new sequel, “Murder Mystery 2,” have this same familiar intensity. They may have less serious ambitions, but they have also been greatly bolstered by the depth and nuance he has lately seemed to harness.In many ways this is much the same Sandler that we have seen onscreen since the early 1990s, as the star of often juvenile feature comedies and as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live”: an oversize man-baby in the throes of an antic tantrum. In films like “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore,” Sandler specialized in a kind of galvanic caricature of Gen X arrested development, oscillating wildly between boyish puppy-dog charm and explosive, bratty anger. His shtick was the interplay of two distinct types: bashful, vaguely pathetic one moment, utterly rabid the next.But there’s a depth of feeling evident in Sandler’s “Gems” performance that wasn’t on view in those earlier roles. From his tense shoulders to the way he grinds his teeth in moments of stress, Howard embodies a world-weariness that borders on exhaustion, looking harried and bedraggled even at his most well-rested and upbeat. All of the childish vigor Sandler is known for is still there, but filtered through several decades of indelible experience. He’s no longer a man-child. He’s an old man-child — and the effect of all that time on earth shows in every gesture and every pore.Sandler opposite Julia Fox in “Uncut Gems,” which marries the actor’s childish persona with decades of experience.A24This weariness isn’t exclusive to his work in “Gems” (available to rent on major platforms). While he’s regularly met the challenge of demanding roles under the direction of auteurs — giving complex, acclaimed performances in James L. Brooks’s “Spanglish” (2004), Judd Apatow’s “Funny People” (2009) and especially Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch-Drunk Love” (2004) — over the past several years he’s brought subtler and more thoughtful shading to broader, lighthearted comedies. He’s drawing on his art-house gifts even in farcical contexts, and the result is some of the most rewarding work of his career.In “Murder Mystery” and the new sequel “Murder Mystery 2,” streaming on Netflix, Sandler plays Nick Spitz, a New York City police detective longing for a promotion (more to the point, a raise). In the first film, Nick and his wife, Audrey (Jennifer Aniston), are celebrating their 15th anniversary with a long-overdue trip across Europe. On the plane, Nick spots Audrey chatting with Charles (Luke Evans), a dashing, titled billionaire, and can barely contain his envy.“I know I’m not a duke,” Nick tells Audrey sheepishly, when they have a moment alone.“He’s a viscount,” Audrey corrects him.“I don’t even know what that is,” Nick replies.This exchange is typical of the couple’s banter, which ranges in the films from tender to acrimonious to protective, sometimes in the span of a single line. Sandler plays the devoted but put-upon husband with a delicate balance of compassion and aloofness, and in moments like this, a wounded candor comes through that is oddly touching. While there’s humor in Nick’s jealousy of his rich and handsome competitor, Sandler laces it with a feeling of threatened ego and husbandly pridefulness. You get a real sense that Nick loves Audrey, and an equally clear impression of how 15 years of husband-and-wife routine have calcified their partnership.“Murder Mystery 2” picks up where the first film left off, with Nick and Audrey having parlayed their crime-solving success into a career as professional gumshoes. As with the original, this sequel works because it remains grounded in the mundane rhythms of a longtime marriage. And again, Sandler channels a hangdog torpor, almost a melancholic air, in a performance that bristles with comic realism. When he has to carry the ransom to a hostage exchange, he grouses about the weight of the briefcase (then gets defensive about the size of his hands); moments after a murder, he bickers with his wife about appropriate before-bed snack portions. This is a man with more down-to-earth concerns than the mystery he is ostensibly solving. Sandler, with surly charisma, makes those concerns palpable.Even the broadest of Sandler’s recent comedies benefit from this maturation. “Hubie Halloween” (2020, on Netflix), a goofy horror parody very much in the style of vintage Happy Madison productions, stars Sandler as Hubie Dubois, a sweet-natured simpleton reminiscent of the characters he played in “Little Nicky” and “The Waterboy.” (As in those films, Sandler speaks entirely in a squeaky, abrasive voice.) The difference is that “Hubie” leans into Sandler’s latent sweetness, counterbalancing the raunchy lowbrow humor with a heartfelt — perhaps even sentimental — touch. There’s always been a deep-seated earnestness in his work: Consider the Frank Capra-esque ending of his mawkish (and underappreciated) farce “Click” (2006). Lately, alongside the weariness, that warmth has come to the fore.Sandler, opposite Juancho Hernangómez, gives a sad, moving performance in “Hustle.”Scott Yamano/NetflixThe subtler, more mature Sandler of recent years is most fully showcased in “Hustle,” the sports comedy-drama by Jeremiah Zagar that was released to glowing reviews on Netflix last summer. Sandler stars as Stanley Sugerman, an international scout for the Philadelphia 76ers. Well-respected in his field, Stanley longs for a position on the bench: In his mid-50s and with a wife and teenage daughter he rarely sees, he badly wants to spend less time on the road and more time at home.Sandler plays Stanley as a man who is grateful for what he has but desperate for a little bit more. A hot basketball prospect in college with a shot at a championship, he squandered his one opportunity to make it as a player in the N.B.A.: After a night of partying, Stanley got into a drunk-driving accident that sent him to jail for six months and instantly derailed his career. Now he carries the guilt of that choice in his every movement.As Sandler capably plays him, he’s haunted — doomed to work in a kind of karmic penance, incapable of forgetting what might have been. It’s a sad and moving performance of remarkable emotional depth. It’s also the kind of performance that hints at where Sandler might go from here. As he continues to grow older, we might see him further hone this melancholy, perhaps eventually taking on roles like the one an aging Jerry Lewis played in Martin Scorsese’s great “The King of Comedy.”At one point in “Hustle,” asked about the dreams he still hopes to follow, Stanley offers a rebuke meant only semi-ironically. “Guys in their 50s don’t have dreams,” he insists. “They have nightmares and eczema.” Clearly Sandler — whether he personally agrees with the sentiment or not — has been channeling that feeling into his work. Onscreen now, at 56, he’s the guy who’s no longer dreaming: He’s only got nightmares and eczema, and whatever jokes he can muster to make about them. More

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      ‘Murder Mystery 2’ Review: The Case of the Innocuous Sequel

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      Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston return as private detectives in this Netflix follow-up comedy.For a certain brand of Adam Sandler films, you know what you’re going to get: something cheerfully lowbrow, easygoing and listlessly comforting when used as background programming. Such movies are what make the actor’s longstanding partnership with Netflix perhaps too suitable a match, as the bulk of the company’s original content has been gradually cheapened to a similar brand. With “Murder Mystery 2,” the sequel to the 2019 comedy “Murder Mystery,” it’s much of the same.The film, directed by Jeremy Garelick, reintroduces us to Nick (Sandler) and Audrey (Jennifer Aniston), the married-couple leads of the original movie, who, after solving the first film’s high-profile murder, have formed a private detective agency, which they are having trouble getting off the ground. They are soon whisked away to the destination wedding of a friend, the Maharajah (Adeel Akhtar), a familiar face from the first movie.A new murder occurs, and the Maharajah is kidnapped. Nick and Audrey are on the case, while they again find themselves wanted by authorities as prime suspects. There’s a bit more scale to this sequel, and plenty of flat gags that will have just a tad more vigor if you’re familiar with the recurring characters.As they have in past team-ups, Sandler and Aniston maintain a charming midcareer looseness, and have a palpable affability as a duo — one can sense the fun they had making such silliness, even if the result isn’t gold. You could do worse for something to turn on while making dinner.Murder Mystery 2Rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, strong language, suggestive material and smoking. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Adam Sandler Is Awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

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      The comedy star was celebrated at the Kennedy Center in Washington for his prolific three-decade career as an actor, writer, producer and stand-up comic.WASHINGTON — Adam Sandler brought his trademark loopy but charming sense of humor to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday night, as he was recognized for three decades of writing, acting and directing with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.“As I look at this goofy award, I can’t help but think that one day it just might be the weapon used to bludgeon me to death,” Mr. Sandler said in his familiar silly cadence during his acceptance speech.He is the 24th comic to be awarded one of the industry’s top honors, which has annually celebrated a heavyweight in American comedy, from film and television’s greatest comedic actors to social critics and playwrights. Each, including last year’s honoree, Jon Stewart, has been recognized for having an impact on American society, according to the Kennedy Center.Mr. Sandler, 56, thanked his friends and family for helping build his confidence throughout his career, which began performing stand-up five nights a week in New York City and led to leading roles in blockbuster comedies like “Grown Ups” and “Big Daddy.” Several of Sunday night’s speakers, including comics and actors such as Judd Apatow, Steve Buscemi and David Spade, poked fun at the parade of Mr. Sandler’s films that were panned by critics in remarks that were as much a roast as they were a celebration of his career.“To hell with ratings, you guys are my new friends now,” Mr. Sandler said to those in the audience.A comic, actor, filmmaker and singer, Mr. Sandler starred in movies that have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide, and he has stacked up dozens of credits as a producer and screenwriter. He became a household name with a leading role in 1995’s “Billy Madison” and later took on sports comedies and popular romantic comedies like 1998’s “The Wedding Singer” with Drew Barrymore and 2011’s “Just Go With It” with Jennifer Aniston, both of whom praised him onstage Sunday night. Idina Menzel, another former co-star, dressed as “Opera Man,” a character from Mr. Sandler’s days as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” in the early 1990s, to open the show and serenaded Mr. Sandler in much his own fashion.The Mark Twain Prize has sometimes been seen as a cap to a long, successful career in comedy, but Mr. Sandler has won critical acclaim for his recent dramatic work, including 2022’s “Hustle,” a return to the sports genre that won him a Gotham Award last year, and 2019’s dark comedy-drama “Uncut Gems.”Many of the night’s speakers praised Mr. Sandler for his unending work ethic. He is currently on an expanded leg of a sold-out stand-up tour across the country and has a sequel to a Netflix comedy special that is set to be released at the end of the month.“It’s just a part of my life that I never expected to happen, and it’s nice that my family and friends get to say that goofy guy Adam won a Mark Twain award,” Mr. Sandler said before the ceremony, which will be broadcast on CNN on March 26 at 8 p.m. Eastern. More

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      Adam Sandler to Receive Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

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      The comedian will receive the Kennedy Center’s annual comedy honor at a ceremony in March.Adam Sandler has had a busy 2022: He starred as a basketball scout in a critically acclaimed performance in the Netflix sports drama “Hustle”; he won an honorary Gotham Award, giving a speech that brought the house down; and undertook his first nationwide arena tour in three years. Now, he’ll be able to start off 2023 with at least one sure thing: a comedy prize.The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced on Tuesday that it will recognize the 56-year-old comedian’s satire and activism when it presents him with its 24th Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, given to luminaries who have “had an impact on American society” in ways similar to Twain, at a ceremony on March 19.In his 30-year career, Sandler, who is known for his loopy, lewd sense of humor and amiable charm, has served as a comedian, actor, writer, producer and musician, starring in films like “The Waterboy” (1998), “Grown Ups” (2010) and “Hotel Transylvania” (2012). After getting his start telling jokes in comedy clubs, he shot to fame as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” then went on to release blockbuster albums and make critically panned comedies. Though he’s also racked up critically acclaimed star turns in the Safdie brothers’ 2019 dark comedy “Uncut Gems” and “Hustle,” among others.Deborah F. Rutter, the president of the Kennedy Center, said in a statement that Sandler had “created characters that have made us laugh, cry and cry from laughing.”Previous winners of the Mark Twain Prize include Jon Stewart, Bill Murray, Dave Chappelle, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Carol Burnett and Ellen DeGeneres. The award has been presented annually since 1998, excepting the pandemic years 2020 and 2021. More

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      Gotham Awards: ‘Everything Everywhere’ and Adam Sandler Grab Spotlight

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      The film’s Ke Huy Quan also won the supporting-performance trophy at the season’s first big ceremony, where honoree Adam Sandler brought down the house.The hit sci-fi comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” earned top honors at the Gotham Awards on Monday night, taking the ceremony’s best-feature prize as well as a supporting-performance trophy for the actor Ke Huy Quan.“This time last year, all I was hoping for was just a job,” said an emotional Quan, who starred in “The Goonies” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” as a child actor but then found work hard to come by. “Just when I think it can’t get any better, it does.”The Gothams are the first big show of awards season, handing out prizes before the Screen Actors Guild and the Oscars have even announced their nominees. Though the winners are chosen by a jury made up of only a handful of film insiders, the Gothams can still provide momentum and a clutch of positive headlines for the contenders who triumph there.One such victory came for lead performance. Since the Gothams have adopted gender-neutral acting categories, three significant contenders for the best-actress Oscar — Cate Blanchett (“Tár”), Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Danielle Deadwyler (“Till”) — faced off against “The Whale” star Brendan Fraser, the presumptive front-runner for the best-actor Oscar. And in that star-packed battle royale, Deadwyler, a rising actress, prevailed for her performance as Mamie Till-Mobley, who becomes an activist following the racially motivated murder of her son, Emmett Till, in 1955.That will help Deadwyler earn more eyes for her movie, though she was absent from the ceremony, as was Steven Spielberg. He had been booked to present an honorary award to his “Fabelmans” star Michelle Williams but was forced to cancel after contracting Covid. Williams, another significant best-actress contender, took the stage to deliver a moving tribute to Mary Beth Peil, who played her grandmother on “Dawson’s Creek,” the teen drama in which Williams got her start.Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown.Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy.The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves.A Lovelorn Romantic: A child star in the 1980s, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blending action and drama.The Costume Designer: Shirley Kurata, who defined the look of the movie, has a signature style that mixes vintage, high-end designers and an intense color wheel.Aiming for the Oscars: At a screening meant to reposition the indie hit as an awards contender, actors and directors marveled at the way their quirky film has struck a chord.“Whenever something good happens in my life, I can draw a straight line” back to Peil, said Williams, who credited the older actress with patiently teaching her lessons about the craft when Williams was still finding her way. “I wasn’t an artist or a mother, I wasn’t even a high school graduate,” Williams said. “But I was Mary Beth’s girl, and that made me a somebody.”As an Oscar predictor, the Gotham Awards can be spotty: “Nomadland” kicked off its juggernaut run by winning the Gothams’ best-feature prize for 2020, though the Gothams victor for 2021, “The Lost Daughter,” didn’t manage to crack the Oscars’ best-picture lineup. And since the Gothams restrict eligibility to films made in the United States for less than $35 million, the ceremony spotlights a narrower slice of films than the Oscars do.Still, it’s a great barometer for industry enthusiasm: At last year’s Gothams, the winning “CODA” star Troy Kotsur delivered such a well-received acceptance speech that future victories, including the Oscar, seemed almost assured. This year, enthusiasm was high for “Everything Everywhere,” directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, which earned big cheers for its best-feature win but even bigger cheers for the endearing Quan, who plays Michelle Yeoh’s husband in the film and could be poised for a Kotsur-like sweep of the televised awards shows.“Oftentimes, it is in independent films where actors who otherwise wouldn’t get a chance find their opportunities,” said Quan, who had spent decades behind the camera until “Everything Everywhere” revived his career. “I was that actor.”Earlier in the show, held at Cipriani Wall Street, honorary awards were given out to “The Woman King” director Gina Prince-Bythewood and to the actor Adam Sandler, who brought the house down with a self-deprecating speech that he claimed had been written by his teenage daughters.But the most thoughtful comment came from the writer-director Todd Field, who picked up a best-screenplay prize for “Tár” and used his acceptance speech to take aim at the entire notion of awards shows.“‘Best.’ We all know that word is a cartoonish absolute with no place in any conversation about creative endeavors,” Field said. “But we campaign for it, we show up for it, we pray for it, if only so the thing we made will be seen and heard and not forgotten in this noisy world.” More

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      ‘Home Team’ Review: Fumblecore

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      Kevin James plays the complicated N.F.L. coach Sean Payton in an uncomplicated Netflix family flick.Last week, the N.F.L. head coach Sean Payton — the most successful coach in the New Orleans Saints’ franchise history — both announced his retirement and, for the extra point, had a cameo in a slapstick family flick about the time when the league suspended Payton for his role in a bounty program that gave cash bonuses to players who made opponents leave the field on a stretcher.“Home Team,” directed by the filmmaking brothers Charles and Daniel Kinnane, plays Payton’s punishment as a sincere tragedy. The comic actor Kevin James, as Payton, stares at his sunken eyes in a mirror. Violins swell. There’s an inspirational tickling of piano. Cut to the cornfields of Argyle, Texas, among which Payton will seek redemption by leading his estranged 12-year-old son’s (Tait Blum) ragtag peewee team to a championship.This actually happened, more or less. But “Home Team” is a product of Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, so the facts have been rejiggered by the screenwriters Chris Titone and Keith Blum to fit the Sandman’s formula: Our hero is a seething screw-up, and everyone else is even worse. It’s yet another comedy of indignities — sorry, make that inanities. Payton’s players puke on the field, his hotel clerk (Jared Sandler) steals all the bagels at the breakfast buffet and his moronic assistant (Gary Valentine) passes out drunk on the bus. Blondes are dumb. Fat people love pizza. And, in a fascinatingly meanspirited subplot that merits its own behind-the-scenes saga, Payton’s ex-wife (Jackie Sandler) has married a loser (Rob Schneider) who eats vegan ice cream, does yoga to get in touch with his feelings and whines that football teaches the wrong lessons about “violence and conflict resolution.” Hey, hippie! A grown man showing emotion is a 15-yard penalty.Home TeamRated PG for kiddie cussing and quasi-comic alcoholism. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Richie Tienken, Whose Comedy Club Propelled Careers, Dies at 75

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRichie Tienken, Whose Comedy Club Propelled Careers, Dies at 75At the Comic Strip, which Mr. Tienken and two partners opened in 1976, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld and many others made a lot of people laugh.Richie Tienken onstage at the Comic Strip in Manhattan in an undated photo. He and two partners opened the club in 1976, and a long list of careers began or were advanced there.Credit…via Tienken familyMarch 6, 2021, 3:25 p.m. ETRichie Tienken, a founder of the influential Manhattan comedy club the Comic Strip, where Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and countless other leading comics did some of their earliest work, died on Feb. 27 in Ridgewood, N.J. He was 75.His wife, Jeannie Tienken, confirmed his death and said the cause had not been determined. In recent years, he had struggled with throat cancer.In the mid-1970s, Mr. Tienken, who owned several bars in the Bronx, went to see one of his bartenders, an aspiring comic, perform at the comedy club Catch a Rising Star, which was in Manhattan at the time. It was a Monday night — normally a slow one in the bar business — and Mr. Tienken was impressed by how packed Catch a Rising Star was, as told in his 2012 book, written with Jeffrey Gurian, “Make ‘Em Laugh: 35 Years of the Comic Strip, the Greatest Comedy Club of All Time!”In a telephone interview, Mr. Tienken’s son Richie said another business fact was not lost on Mr. Tienken: At the time, comics weren’t generally paid (though the Comic Strip did eventually start paying modest amounts).“He was paying bands $400 a night” at his bars, the younger Mr. Tienken said. He did the math, and he decided that opening a comedy club to compete with Catch a Rising Star and the Improv, the only other prominent comedy club in Manhattan at the time, could be profitable.He and his partners settled on a run-down bar on Second Avenue between 80th and 81st Streets.“The place was old — really old,” Mr. Tienken wrote in the book. “But the bathrooms were in place, which meant that the plumbing was all in.”The Comic Strip (now known as Comic Strip Live) opened in 1976, and a long list of careers began or were propelled along there.“Richie Tienken’s club gave me my start in comedy,” Mr. Seinfeld, who first performed there in 1976, said through a spokesman. “And he had a wonderful, fatherly way about him that gave us all a feeling of encouragement as we stumbled around his stage trying to figure out how to do it. We all loved seeing him every night, and he took good care of us.”Mr. Tienken, second from left, with, from left, the comedians Jimmy Brogan, Jerry Seinfeld and Mark Schiff. “Richie Tienken’s club gave me my start in comedy,” Mr. Seinfeld said.Credit…via Tienken familyMr. Seinfeld returned to the club to perform a 2017 Netflix special, “Jerry Before Seinfeld,” in which he included the first jokes he told from the Comic Strip stage.Mr. Murphy, soon to achieve stardom on “Saturday Night Live,” was another comic who honed his stand-up at the club in its early days. Mr. Tienken and one of his co-founders, Robert Wachs, managed him for a time, and they both had producer credits on some of Mr. Murphy’s movies.A somewhat later group included Adam Sandler, Ray Romano and Mr. Rock, who wrote the introduction for “Make ‘Em Laugh” and compared comedy clubs like Catch a Rising Star and the Comic Strip to colleges for young stand-ups.“Catch was Yale, and the Strip was Illinois State University, Urbana,” he wrote. “Catch was stressful, like you were always on the verge of being expelled if you didn’t keep up your grades. The Strip was laid back. If you put in the work and studied, you would do well. But if you blew off a term smoking pot, it didn’t go on your permanent record.”And Mr. Tienken?“He had powerful shoulders and was genial,” Mr. Rock wrote, “like a bouncer who babysat on the side.”Richard John Tienken was born on June 11, 1945, in Manhattan. His father, John, was an electrician, and his mother, Helen, was a homemaker and also worked in a department store.He left home at 13, he said — he had stolen a car, and when reform school loomed, he hit the road to avoid it. His father was surprisingly supportive when he announced his plans.“He said, ‘After looking into them’” — that is, reform schools — “‘I understand; here’s 50 bucks,’” Mr. Tienken recalled last year in an episode of Mr. Gurian’s video series, “Comedy Matters.”He sold magazines and delivered groceries, and he eventually got into bar and bingo hall ownership. Then he moved into comedy.Mr. Gurian, a writer, comic and comedy historian who worked with Mr. Tienken again on a 2016 update of the 2012 book that they called “Laughing Legends: How the Comic Strip Club Changed the Face of Comedy,” said that among Mr. Tienken’s innovations was instituting a schedule so comics would know when they were going onstage; in other clubs, they might sit around for hours not knowing when or even whether they would get stage time on a given night.Some of the comics who came through his club were known for edgy material, but Mr. Tienken’s son Richie said his father was a fan of restraint.“He encouraged comics to tell stories about their own life over shock value and vulgarity,” he said.Mr. Tienken married Jeannie Nardi in 1991. In addition to her and his son Richie, Mr. Tienken, who lived in Hawthorne, N.J., is survived by another son, Jonathan; three daughters, Jacqueline, Dawn and Christina; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.Mr. Tienken’s club had financial troubles at times (its post-pandemic future is unclear), and in recent years he had been embroiled in legal battles with the widow of Mr. Wachs, who died in 2013. But in the video interview last year, he said Mr. Seinfeld’s recent special had given the club a financial lift.So did a gesture by another alumnus, Mr. Sandler, who shot part of his 2018 Netflix special called “100% Fresh” there. But unlike the Seinfeld taping, that one was a surprise to Mr. Tienken; his wife kept it a secret from him.“She said to me, ‘When you come in tonight, dress nice,’” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More