His older brothers were rabbis, and Jackie Mason himself was ordained at the age of 25. But three years later he quit because, in one of his famous one-liners, "someone in the family had to make a living."

Jackie first performed on the Catskill summer resort circuit, along with other Jewish comics of his generation who gained so-called "Borscht Belt" fame. In the early 1960s, he became a popular regular on The Ed Sullivan Show, but that ended abruptly when he made a hand gesture in front of a live audience, offending the host. This famous incident not only earned him banishment from the Sullivan show but made it difficult for him to find work for years.

But Jackie came back with a vengeance in the 1980s when his one-man show "The World According to Me" took Los Angeles, Broadway, and eventually Europe, by storm. There weren't even Standing Room Only tickets available to see Jackie's trademark lethal political satire and fearless commentary on life. It won every award possible: Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Ace, Emmy, and Grammy. Other one-man shows followed suit. Jackie's fame solidified, with only two less-than-successful ventures, including a TV sitcom called "Chicken Soup." Jackie did not write his own material for the show, a mistake he was never to repeat.

Because of Jackie's outspoken support of the state of Israel, he has sometimes suffered criticism, but no one denies the brilliance of his political humor. He has co-hosted for years on the PBS talk show "Crossing the Line", as well as a BBC radio show, both on political subjects. Oxford University has conferred two honors upon him, one being the award of Fellow of Humanities and the other an honorary degree from the Oxford Debating Society. The latter degree has been conferred upon only three other non-Oxford graduates: Ghandi, John F. Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.