For Lorne: Another Saturday night

Born in Toronto in 1944, Lorne David Lipowitz, as Lorne Michaels was known at birth, was, like all baby boomers, seemingly predisposed to undermine, question, and, above all, parody the prevailing conventions of his civilization. “People start to be funny early in their lives, when they notice the difference between the official version and what their eyes and ears tell them,” said Michaels, who is described in Susan Morrison’s authoritative new biography as being an eager devotee of American television, especially The Phil Silvers Show. Fatherless at 14, Michaels welcomed the mentorship of Frank Shuster, part of a Canadian comedy team that had logged appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and the father of Michaels’s future wife, Rosie. “Shuster explained how jokes worked,” Morrison writes.

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