Trivia

Father of Alan Kirschenbaum.

For years he was the dean of the Friars Club.

His father sold shoes and his mother was a homemaker.

Relatives owned the Crystal Spring Hotel in the Catskills. When Freddie was 15, he asked his uncle to let him out of some busboy shifts so he could try emceeing for the nightly entertainers. He continued his emcee gigs during his summer breaks from New York University, where he met his future wife, Ethel Harris. After graduation, he opened a shoe store, and he and Ethel raised two children. On weekends, he did stand-up in the Borscht Belt, eventually selling the shoe store to focus on comedy full-time. He got his big break in the early 1970s, when he landed a gig at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. He wound up spending 18 years in Vegas, performing 12 weeks a year at Caesars Palace and the Riviera Hotel.