Groucho Marx, Patton Oswalt and Gilbert Gottfried: Portrait Artist Drew Friedman Explains Some of His Best Portraits of Comedy Legends
Since the 1980s, artist Drew Friedman has made a name for himself drawing comedians — especially old or deceased Jewish comedians. First, he drew alternative comic strips for magazines like Heavy Metal in which he depicted them doing absurd things, like former Stooge Curly Joe DeRita living with apes. By the 1990s, he switched to more straightforward portraits of his comedic heroes. Many of these portraits have been featured in publications like The New York Observer, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times and Rolling Stone.
His work has become so renowned that he’s the subject of the forthcoming documentary Drew Friedman: Vermeer of the Borscht Belt by Shout Factory, which will be screened on March 29th at the the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles.
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Friedman has also released a number of books featuring his portraits. His latest is Schtick Figures: The Cool, the Comical, the Crazy, which came out late last year. Below, Friedman breaks down some of his favorite portraits from Schtick Figures and explains why he enjoys drawing Shemp from the Three Stooges so much.
Gilbert Gottfried
“The portrait of Gilbert Gottfried, which I used for the cover, I actually did for The Village Voice for what was supposed to be their final issue, though they would end up getting a new publisher later,” explains Friedman. “They came to me and said, for their final issue, ‘Just do a one-page piece of whatever you want to do.’ So I was just thinking, ‘I feel like drawing Gilbert Gottfried. He lives in New York. I’ll draw him.’
“Gilbert saw this portrait before he passed away, but he didn’t really have any reaction to it. I know he was hesitant about that stuff. His wife, Dara, was thrilled with it, but if I ever pressed him, Gilbert would probably point out things he didn’t like about it. I knew that about him. Back in 1991, I asked Gilbert to do a forward for one of my books. In it, he said that looking at my art makes him want to vomit and go take a shower and clean himself. He’s so disgusted by it. I thought it was hilarious, and we ran it.”
George Carlin
“I love George Carlin,” says Friedman. “To me, he was part of the trifecta of comedians in the 1970s: George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Robert Klein. I’d throw Albert Brooks in there too, so there were four, actually — the Mount Rushmore of comedians in the 1970s. Anyway, you think of George Carlin as a hippie in the 1970s and 1980s, but he had this whole career in the 1960s where he had short hair and he wore a suit and tie. He had a continuing part on the TV show That Girl. Those are things people don’t really know about him, so I didn’t want to go the obvious way with George. I wanted to show him before he became what people think of him as.”
Moms Mabley
“I’m a huge Moms Maybely fan. She was a legendary comedian,” Friedman explains. “She just had a great face.”
As far as how he chooses his subjects, Friedman says it happens in a couple different ways. “Some people in the book were assignments, but I love drawing comedians, especially Jewish comedians. They have great faces. I love people with great expressive faces. I’m drawn to them — no pun intended.
“If someone has a bland face, I usually try to avoid that because I just can’t get into it. I need an expressive face. Old faces are great because it’s like they’ve lived their lives on their face. Although, I’m getting a little old myself, so now I’m a little touchy about it, like the liver spots and the wrinkles and stuff. I’m like, ‘Well, maybe it’s not so funny.’”
Shemp Howard
“I’ve drawn all the Stooges, and one of the main things about Shemp for me is that he looks like a real guy,” says Friedman. “He doesn’t necessarily look like a movie star; he looks like a real guy who wandered onto the movie set and they just decided to use him. He looks like the kind of guy I’d see when I was a kid at bar mitzvahs and seders and birthday parties, like an old drunken uncle.”
Patton Oswalt
“Patton Oswalt was drawn specifically for the book,” Friedman says. “I wanted to give him that burst in the background — it’s a Mickey Mouse burst. Patton is kind of a cartoony character; he does cartoon voices, and I just thought that would work. He’s also a friend. He’s been very nice to me, and I just wanted to include him. I showed it to him, and he said, ‘Oh, that’s great. I love it. Could you make me a little thinner?’ I said, ‘Well…’ and he said, ‘No, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.’”
Friedman says he often uses photo references when drawing his subjects, but it also helps that he’s known so many of the comedic greats personally. “I have a good photo reference file, and, these days, you can Google photos. Knowing a subject, like Gilbert Gottfried or Patton Oswalt, helps because I’ve seen them up close many times over the years. But I have good photo references that I can work from, and I combine images and then go in my own direction. I add things, subtract things, play up certain things. That's how I work.”
Groucho Marx
“I’ve drawn Groucho Marx many times over the years,” says Friedman. “I’ve drawn him young, middle-aged and old. He’s one of my favorite comedians, if not my very favorite comedian. So, in this book, I have him from the mid-1940s, which is kind of after the Marx Brothers’ movie career and before he did You Bet Your Life, because I’d never drawn him from that era.”
“And I knew Groucho,” Friedman continues. “I actually encountered him three times when I was a kid. My dad, the writer Bruce J. Friedman, was invited to Groucho’s house in 1975, and he brought my brothers and me along with him. The main memory I have from meeting Groucho was when my brother Josh said to him, ‘Groucho, we used to live in Great Neck, Long Island, and I know you lived in Great Neck back in the 1920s. Do you remember an old Vaudeville theater called the Playhouse Theatre? It’s now a movie theater. They have an old organ in the back.’ And Groucho just looked at my brother and said, ‘I’ve got an old organ myself.’”
