Sid Caesar

Sid Caesar, one of the first stars created by television via his weekly live comedy program “Your Show of Shows,” died Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills after a brief illness. He was 91.

A two-time Emmy winner, Caesar (above in a photo with Red Buttons and Mickey Rooney) and his partner Imogene Coca broke comedic ground with the 90-minute live program: It didn’t rely on vaudeville or standup material but rather on long skits and sketches written by an impressive roster of comedy writers including Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart, Carl Reiner, Lucille Kallen and Mel Tolkin.

Reiner said Caesar had an ability to “connect with an audience and make them roar with laughter.”

“Sid Caesar set the template for everybody,” Reiner told KNX-AM in Los Angeles. “He was without a doubt the greatest sketch comedian-monologist that television ever produced. He could ad lib. He could do anything that was necessary to make an audience laugh.”

“Your Show of Shows” was “different from other programs of its time because its humor was aimed at truth,” Simon once observed. “Other television shows would present situations with farcical characters; we would put real-life people into identifiable situations.”