SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. — Enrico Banducci, the flamboyant San Francisco nightclub impresario whose Hungry I launched political satirist Mort Sahl and played a major role in the careers of Shelley Berman, Woody Allen, Jonathan Winters and other comedians in the 1950s and ’60s, has died. He was 85.
Banducci, who had been hospitalized for kidney and heart problems in September, died Oct. 9 at home, said his niece, Chi Chi Banducci. A one-time concert violinist, Banducci bought the Hungry I – short for the Hungry Id – in 1951 from Eric Nord, who had started the tiny North Beach club two years earlier.
Under Banducci, the 83-seat club in the basement of the Sentinel Building on Columbus Avenue evolved from a bohemian hangout to a showcase for folk singers such as Stan Wilson.
That changed when Banducci hired Sahl, the club’s first comedian, in late 1953.
Banducci reportedly gave Sahl time to develop his brand of political satire and encouraged him to speak his mind on stage.
“We were set free by Enrico,” Sahl said in April during the launch of “Enrico Banducci’s Hungry I: San Francisco’s Legendary Nightclub,” an exhibition at the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum.
“He’s fearless,” Sahl said. “He was his own man. I stress that, because he’s the last one I met.”
Sahl soon was drawing lines of customers around the block at the Hungry I, which moved to its much larger and more famous basement location on nearby Jackson Street in spring 1954.
“The Hungry I had become by the mid-1950s the Comedy Central of its day, the main staging area of the revolutionary movement” in stand-up comedy, wrote Gerald Nachman in his 2003 book “Seriously Funny: the Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s.”
A stream of new-wave comedians performed at the Hungry I, including Phyllis Diller, Dick Gregory, Lenny Bruce and Bill Cosby. One memorable 1963 double bill featured Allen and a young Barbra Streisand.
In the process, the barrel- chested, mustachioed and beret-wearing Banducci became known as “The Billy Rose of North Beach,” with the Hungry I deemed “the most influential nightclub west of the Mississippi.”
“I gave people artistic freedom, allowed them to express themselves as they wished, without any interference from me or anybody else,” Banducci recalled during the opening of the exhibition in April.
“He had an extraordinary eye for talent, and he set the standard in nightclub entertainment for 20 years,” Brad Rosenstein, the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum’s curator of exhibitions and programs, said Monday.
Banducci, Rosenstein said, “started three major revolutions in nightclub entertainment.”
“He crafted a new style for the nightclub where bohemia met elegance,” said Rosenstein, noting that Banducci “was the first to have that brick wall behind the stage, which every club now has.
“He also started satirical political comedy, which was virtually unknown before Mort Sahl. And, finally, he started the revolution in folk music, which went around the country and around the world.”
The Limeliters folk group launched its career at the Hungry I, which also featured the Kingston Trio; Peter, Paul and Mary; and other groups.
A child prodigy on the violin, Banducci went to San Francisco when he was 13 to study music. At 17, he was getting ready for a violin recital when he decided that Harry was an unsuitable first name for a musician.
Other deaths
Carol Bruce , 87, a stage actress and singer from the 1940s who became best known late in her long career as Mama Carlson, the ruthless station owner on the television comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died on Oct. 9 in Woodland Hills, Calif.
Bruce made guest appearances on more than 25 television shows, including “The Golden Girls,” “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Knots Landing,” “The Twilight Zone” and “Party of Five.” She played the recurring “WKRP” role from 1979 until the show ended its run in 1982.
She first earned public attention and critical acclaim in 1940 on Broadway in “Louisiana Purchase,” a satirical Irving Berlin musical, then made three movies for Universal: “This Woman Is Mine,” “Behind the Eight Ball” and “Keep ‘Em Flying.” Later in her career she appeared in “American Gigolo” (1980) and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” (1987).
Bruce was born Shirley Levy on Nov. 15, 1919, in Great Neck, N.Y. She was a saleswoman and a model at Namm’s department store in Brooklyn and then started her performing career as a singer in the ’30s.
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Rosalio Castillo, 85, a Venezuelan cardinal who was a prominent critic of President Hugo Chavez, died Tuesday, a Catholic Church representative said.
Castillo Lara accused Chavez of becoming increasingly authoritarian. At one point, he even recommended an exorcism for the socialist president.
During one of his final Masses, Castillo Lara said that under Chavez’s rule “fundamental democratic principles are ignored or violated (and) human rights are frequently infringed upon.”
Chavez has repeatedly clashed with church leaders, lambasting the Catholic leadership as “liars” and “perverts.” He once called Castillo Lara “a hypocrite, bandit and devil with a cassock.”
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Ruby T. Hooper, 83, who in 1984 became the first woman from a major political party to run for governor of North Carolina, died Friday.
She lost her first bid for governor to Jim Martin in the 1984 Republican primary. Martin would go on to win the general election, and Hooper served in his administration as deputy secretary of the Department of Human Resources. She ran again for the GOP nomination in 1991, losing to Lt. Gov. James C. Gardner.
