Gilbert Lanz Berman (1958-2003), better known as Gil Berman, was a famous American comedian who is the main character in "If God Were Alive Today", an uncompleted novella which was Vonnegut's final work of fiction. He was known for his cynical views on various American institutions, his own identity as a sexual "neuter", and drugs in society.
Family Background[]
Marsh Plaza, Boston University
Berman mother was Magda Lanz of Knightsbridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Sarah and Gilbert Lanz, who made his money in Boston real estate, served briefly as United States ambassador to Israel, and was the largest individual donor to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, although he himself lacked musical talent. Magda had a brief career as a child piano prodigy, performing with the Boston Pops Orchestra at age eight. She attended Knightsbridge High School and later Boston University to study pre-med where she met and married Bob "Paddy" Berman, a 22 year old, red-headed pre-dental student.[1]
Dying shortly before his grandson's birth, the widowed Gilbert Lanz left $10 million to the unborn Gil Berman and another $100 million to his mother. The pregnancy was a difficult one and afterward Magda suffered from postpartum depression and electroconvulsive therapy treatments. From then on, Magda played piano for hours, made scrapbooks of current events from the daily newspaper, and headed the household like a "queen bee" in the words of her son. Later, young Gil was encouraged to sit next his mother while she played, but was forbidden to ever touch the keys.
His parents primarily communicated through his mother's lawyer and his father was rarely home once he completed his dental degree and bought a practice in Boston with Magda's family money. Bob Berman, who was considered by many to be attractive and personable, became something of a "ladies' man" as his marriage stagnated since neither wife nor son acknowledge him during visits. He eventually fathered a daughter with his secretary, Mary Kathleen McCarthy, around 1973. McCarthy moved away without revealing the pregnancy and put the daughter up for adoption at the age of three months.[2]
Youth[]
An only child, Berman was not allowed to bring friends over to his house. He was described years later as "a rather unusual child" by his former kindergarten teacher. Like his mother, Berman attended Knightsbridge High School where he excelled in all subjects to the extent that he was offered full scholarship to study the sciences at both Cal Tech and M.I.T., which he rejected due to his family's wealth. While at Knightsbridge High, Berman served as president of the National Honor Society and ran for junior class president, but lost to Cynthia Gottlieb, later Secretary of Transportation under George W. Bush. English teacher Florence Pate Glass later commented that Berman was a very serious youth, not inclined to humor, and never known for physical violence. Biology teacher Dr. Aaron Edelman called him at the time "an ardent Schweitzerite, a fully committed reverence-for-lifer." Berman wore his Knightsbridge High class ring until his death.
College Walk, Columbia University
Berman ultimately attended Columbia University, majoring in pre-law for five semesters. While there he was exposed to the college drug and alcohol culture and came to admire the activist anti-war students who had attended the school only a few years earlier. He was dormmates with Barry Dresdener who would later become a vice president of Microsoft and at that time supplied Berman with Ritalin. In 1977, Berman's father Bob committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of a high school girlfriend. Berman began performing stand-up comedy at open-mic nights at Cutty Sark on Broadway near the Columbia campus. There, on 12mg of Ritalin and two brandies, he performed his later famous routine about teaching evolution in New York public schools and impressed the bitter and aged comedian Gary Ash, once part of the popular radio and early-TV duo Bing and Ash.
Comedy Career[]
In 1978 Berman dropped out of Columbia to become a professional comedian. He had already adopted what became his trademark look: "three-piece suit, shirt and tie, buzz-cut red hair, and white basketball shoes" which he thought an appropriate costume for "a clown for our generation". By the early 1980s[3] he performed for the first time in Las Vegas as a warm-up act for Marie Osmond, the consequences of which ultimately led to his first stay at the Caldwell Institute, a drug treatment center. Berman was released with a supply of Desamol, a sleeping pill that also suppresses sexual functioning. After this, a large part of Berman's act became his persona as a "neuter" without sexual desire, although early in his career he was known for his sexual prowess.
Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City
He later became a mainstay on the late-night talk show circuit and in 1992 he released his first comedy album, Who's Sorry Now?, which was popular on college campuses. An event in March 2000, when he was headliner at the Trump Taj Mahal and threw himself madly on a craps table, led to a second stay at Caldwell that July and produced material for a tour of college campuses in New York and New England in late 2000. Much of this would appear on Berman's second and final album, If God Were Alive Today, released in April 2003 shortly before his death that November. The final album was named from the final line of the previous album: "If God were alive today He'd be an atheist."
Personal Life and Death[]
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The former Ritz Carlton, Boston as seen from Boston Public Garden
During his time in Las Vegas in the early 1980s, Berman married Wanda Lightfoot, a topless dancer, while both were on LSD. Later at the Ritz Carlton in Boston, Lightfoot revealed she was pregnant and planned to keep the child. At this news, Berman—who told her he didn't want children at the wedding and now wanted her to have an abortion—severely beat her, which did not abort the fetus but led to divorce and Berman's first stay at the drug treatment center the Caldwell Institute, although at this point he was already restricting his intake to alcohol. His behavior at the time was described by the Boston Globe as "uncharacteristic", "atypical", and "one hundred percent anomalous". Material about this event would later open his first comedy album, but after sobriety Berman, much like his critics at the time, wondered "how anyone could find that part of it funny"; while recording it after snorting speed he had found it hilarious. After this first stay, Berman would swear off alcohol—even as he consumed copious amounts of other drugs—and became known for his drinking of Shirley Temples.
Berman's mother Madga died on April 9, 2000 shortly before Berman's second stay at Caldwell. While there, he employed the services of psychiatrist Dr. Helen Newman Klein for two sessions in which she refused to give him more Desamol, showed him a scrapbook his mother had made of the headlines when he beat his wife and was sent to Caldwell the first time, and told him that his distress came not from drugs but his inability to accept that he had abandoned his wife and child. Berman realized he was falling in love with Dr. Klein and fired her. After leaving Caldwell the second time, Berman remained drug-free, although eighteen years of taking Milk of Magnesia daily had left him "a carpet-bombing fart machine".
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The Players, New York City
At a show at the Calvin Theater in Northhampton, Massachusetts on December 12, 2000, Berman's performance ended when Martha Jones, a mentally unstable stalker, proclaimed that Berman was Jesus Christ, which lead to an unintentionally successful conclusion to his act. Later that same evening, Berman received a Christmas card from Kimberly Berlin, a teacher at the nearby Nellie Prior Academy, who saw his performance earlier and informed him that she was his sister, the daughter of Bob Berman and Mary Kathleen McCarthy.
Berman died in November 2003 on his forty-fifth birthday of a self-administered morphine overdose while dying of pancreatic cancer, the same disease that killed his mother. His memorial service was held at The Players, a club in New York City to which he belonged, at which selections from his recent final album were played. The epitaph on his tombstone, at his own request, read: "He lasted three years longer in that fucking Chinese fire drill than his dad did".