The Second Card Of Christmas

This is a picture of my funny friend Karen Lorshbough with Ringo Starr. She was performing at the 50th birthday party for Barbara Bach, Ringo’s wife, at their home in Beverly Hills. Karen is not only a standup comic and a mime but she is probably the only Silver Friedman impersonator in the free world.

Sidebar: Silver Friedman is the ex-wife of Budd Friedman, the former owner of the L.A. Improv on Melrose. He and Silver owned the Original Improv on West 44th Street in New York City and she got it in the divorce.

Silver has an unusual voice, flat in timbre and somewhat disdainful. Karen was the only comic who ever mastered it, not to mention dared to do it. Silver had a cat named Tits that had free reign of the club. We were discouraged from playing with Tits, which is a line you really don’t want to give a comic.

After Karen moved to L.A., I made her come to my house and record my outgoing message as Silver. During the recording she said, ‘Excuse me, but please don’t touch Tits, leave Tits alone.’ as if she was talking to a comedian across the club. Every comic who called was laughing on the tape and then said, “How in the fuck did you get Silver Friedman to leave your outgoing message? And isn’t that cat dead yet?”

End of chat.