The American comedian and actor has died aged 93

March 1993, we had tickets to see Jackie Mason at the Dominion Theatre in London’s Tottenham Court Road. We knew what shtick to expect having experienced him on the radio and TV, including his own sarcastic opinion that he was “too Jewish”, especially for a nice middle-class London Jewish audience.

As we waited for the show to start, my husband glanced round the auditorium, musing on the capacity 2,000 crowd and what that night’s take might be for a one-man show. The diminutive figure strode on stage and began in his trademark voice with, according to a New York Times critic, “the Yiddish locutions of an immigrant who just completed a course in English”. We sort of appreciated the borsht-belt comedy, typified by attacks on the stereotypes: “It's easy to tell the difference between Jews and Gentiles. After the show, all the gentiles are saying 'Have a drink? Want a drink? Let's have a drink!' While all the Jews are saying 'Have you eaten yet? Want a piece of cake? Let's have some cake!’”

Then Mason turned to the men in the audience and said something like, “So you guys out there, I bet you are all wondering, if there are 2000 seats and the ticket price is $50, what’s one man getting paid to be out here?” He had us entirely after that.

Born Yacov Moshe Maza on 9 June 1928, Mason was the fourth son – and the only one to be born in the USA – in a family that came from Minsk, Belarus, boasting a long line of rabbis. Aged 25, he graduated with a BA in English and Sociology from the City College of New York at the same time as he was ordained as a rabbi. “I started telling more and more jokes,” he said of his time in synagogue, “and after a while, a lot of gentiles would come to the congregation just to hear the sermons.” Three years later, he left his job as a rabbi to become a comedian because, he said, "Somebody in the family had to make a living.”

The Borsht Belt circuit did not always appreciate humour that was clearly directed at them and Mason struggled to make an impact on television, notably having a spat with Ed Sullivan that took many years to resolve. He made a few appearances in plays and films, but success came with his series of one-man shows that won a number of awards. He was also the first guest star on The Simpsons to win an Emmy for his voiceover of Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky.

The comedian’s last active years, until 2009, were marred by a number of politically incorrect observations that caused audiences to walk out, but Mason himself would say: “I talk to myself because I like dealing with a better class of people.”

In 1991, Mason married his manager Jyll Rosenfeld and their daughter Sheba continues the tradition as a comedian. One can imagine Mason’s last words repeating his nostrum: “It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.”

By Judi Herman