Irwin Corey, the comic maestro who endeared himself to generations of audiences as “The World’s Foremost Authority,” whose nonsensical monologues aped blowhard pundits, pompous academics and other know-it-alls, died Feb. 6 at his home in Manhattan. He was 102.
His son, painter, songwriter, singer and comedian Richard Corey, quipped that his father died “peacefully, at home, surrounded by his son.”
Under the moniker “Professor Corey,” the self-described rebel comedian spent eight decades perfecting a mock-intellectual routine laced with malapropisms and non sequiturs.
“Protocol takes precedence over procedure,” he quipped in a typical self-satisfied insight.
Such fractured wisdom earned him requests to perform his act on radio and television news shows.
On an election-year outcome, he once said, “I’m sorry, the returns are fragmentary, but the indication is that there will be a turnout that won’t come up to the expectations of those who, through their own analyses, have proved the percentages will only relate to the outcome.”
On a morning show’s weather report, he explained that the day’s temperature could be attributed to “a weather mass coming from Canada, a country we don’t own yet” clashing with “a hot-air mass coming from Washington.”
Corey debuted on Broadway in 1943 and became a staple of nightclubs such as the Copacabana in New York and the Silver Slipper in Washington, with a monologue that usually started with “However …”
He was instantly recognizable for his disheveled appearance, frazzled hair sprouting in all directions. His signature outfit was a black tuxedo with tails, a string tie and a ratty pair of high-tops.
He was a household name to generations of Americans through his appearances on late-night television talk shows from the 1950s onward and on the college circuit in the counterculture 1960s.
Onscreen, he usually played street-smart hokum artists in comedies such as “How to Commit Marriage,” “Car Wash” and “The Curse of the Jade Scorpion.”
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