The Old Max

PROFILE of Max Gordon. Al Lewis did a comic monologue similar to Cliff Gordon's. Lewis revered Cliff as a big-time comedian, and when he heard one day that Cliff's brother Max was in the theatre to catch a matinee of "Vanity Fair," he dug up 12 extra verses of a topical which he had prepared as encores and, hoping to impress Max, sang all of them, reappearing twelve times in spite of an almost frantic lack of demand from the audience. After the show he invited Max to come backstage and took him toa good 25-cent dinner. That was the prelude to a partnership between the two men, who, as Lewis & Gordon, later produced in association with Sam Harris, such hits as "Welcome Stranger, "The Nervour Wreck," and others.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com