LENNY BRUCE - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED CHECK 12/20/1962 - HFSID 168992

LENNY BRUCE
The comedian signs a check with his birth name in Chicago in December 1962 - the month and year he faced prosecutors on obscenity charges in the city.
Check signed: "Leonard A. Schneider", 6¼x2¾. Chicago, Illinois, 1962 December 20. Not numbered. Drawn on his account at The Cosmopolitan National Bank, Chicago Illinois, payable to Sadie Kitcheneberg for $250. Endorsed: "Sadie Kitchenberg" on verso. In December 1962, Bruce faced prosecutors in Chicago on obscenity charges - his third such trial (he had previously been tried in San Francisco in October 1961 and in Los Angeles in October 1962, two months before he wrote this check). The comedy of off-color comedian and satirist Lenny Bruce (born Leonard Alfred Schneider in 1925) crossed the boundaries of First Amendment "Freedom of Speech" and got him into legal trouble (including several arrests) during the early 1960s, but it also changed the face of American comedy monologues and opened the door to a grittier, more political form of stand-up humor. Bruce, who was found dead in his Hollywood residence from a drug overdose on August 3, 1966, was the subject of the 1974 film, Lenny, which starred Dustin Hoffman as the controversial comedian, and a 1991 stage show of the same name. On December 23, 2003, over 37 years after Bruce's death, New York Governor George Pataki pardoned Bruce of obscenity charges arising from a New York appearance in the first posthumous pardon in the state's history. Check has been cut apart and then taped back together at lower portion, including lower left, where account number was printed. Lightly creased and soiled. Tape stains at signature (completely legible), Bruce's two-line address and two lines of writing. Show through of bank stamp on verso above signature. Bank cancellation holes at left portion nick the "s" of Sadie. Overall, fair condition.