The Ventura County actor-comedian-writer will give a presentation titled “Comedy and Its Reflections in History: A Seriously Funny Look at American Humor” at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Grant R. Brimhall Library, 1401 E. Janss Road, Thousand Oaks. Admission is free.

———————– Stephen Osman/the Star Entertainer Shelley Berman, reflected in knife blade. Berman has an extensive knife collection at his home.

Actor-comedian-writer Shelley Berman marvels at Charlie Chaplin eating a shoe in the 1925 silent film “Gold Rush.” Chaplin, as the desperately hungry Little Tramp, heats his footwear in water, then sits down to eat, twirling the shoelaces like spaghetti and cutting the leather sole on a plate like a cut of fine meat.

“You laugh, and laugh, and sit there until your belly was hurting. And what did he do for us?” Berman asked. “He did what mothers couldn’t do, what fathers couldn’t do, what no politician could possibly do: He made us laugh at our hunger. And it’s so wonderful when somebody could do that.”

As Chaplin said, “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.”

Berman himself has been playing with pain, foibles, fears and idiosyncrasies — ours as well as his own — since the 1950s, delving into comedy’s darker side while remaining devilishly funny as a guest on TV variety shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Jack Paar, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and others. He’s also acted on numerous TV programs. You might recognize him as Larry David’s father on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”; he received an Emmy nomination for the guest-actor role in 2008.

The 80-something Berman, who lives in Ventura County’s Bell Canyon, believes that humor keeps us sane in crazy historical times — whether the 1920s, when poverty and hunger gnawed at us; or the 1950s and ’60s, when an unpopular war, politicians (particularly a senator named Joe McCarthy) and anger cast clouds on our collective consciousness; or today, when an unpopular war, politicians and anger … well, you know.

“How could you NOT be funny in a time of war, in a time of misery, a time of upset?,” Berman said in his still-recognizable deep voice during an interview at his home. “Yet, it was almost spoon-feeding you. The time, the history, was giving you everything you needed.

“And what is (comedy) good for, just a laugh? Well, not when Joe McCarthy was around. It was the only way out.”

Berman will talk about the intersection of laughter and real life on Sunday during a talk at the Grant R. Brimhall Library in Thousand Oaks titled “Comedy and Its Reflections in History: A Seriously Funny Look at American Comedy.”

Shelley Berman has written three humorous books: “A Hotel Is a Place …,”"Up in the Air with Shelley Berman” and “Cleans & Dirtys.”

Published in 1966, “Cleans & Dirtys” is based on Berman’s theory that “some very innocent-looking words are not so innocent at all.”

Here are a few examples:Desk is a clean. Drawers are a dirty.

Hotel is a clean. Motel is a dirty

Nail is a clean. Screw is a dirty.

Lettuce is a clean Cucumber is a dirty.

Button is a clean. Zipper is a dirty.

Milk is a clean. Cream is a dirty.

———————– Contributed photo In the 1960s, actor-comedian-writer Shelley Berman was a popular stand-up comic who performed in clubs and on TV variety shows hosted by Ed Sullivan, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and many others. He often performed sitting on a stool, pretending to have a telephone conversation with an imaginary person.

HUMOR AND HISTORY

Thousand Oaks librarian Margaret Douglas, who lives in Bell Canyon, said she heard Berman give this “lecture” at a social event in the gated community and invited him to share it at the library.

You’ll get a college-caliber presentation. Berman is a professor emeritus at USC, where he taught humor writing in the master’s writing program for 23 years, and still teaches as a guest lecturer.

During his presentation, Berman said, he’ll go as far back as Greek dramatist Aristophanes and 17th-century French playwright Molière.

Molière, he said, “wrote the most wonderful satire of the time, of these men with powdered wigs and powdered faces. He showed us the phoniness of the aristocracy. And what happened? The middle class started to laugh, and feel better about themselves.”

Comedy, he said, “did what comedy is supposed to do. The people felt a relief, a way to fight back.”

You’ll also likely hear about Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Sid Caesar and Jon Stewart. Berman counts them all as idols, but he’s a comedy idol, too.

Brighde Mullins, director of USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program, said Berman “can genuinely communicate to students his process, and that’s rare. I think a lot of artists are kind of precious and guarded about their process. He’s really generous. It’s almost like it’s his moral obligation to make people see levity in the world.”

She describes Berman’s comedy as “kind of existential slapstick … there’s a real recognition of the darkness of existence, and this way of turning it. He sort of reminds me of Kafka. It’s really funny, but you have to give yourself over to his world.”

Our world. The real world.

It’s no surprise that Berman views political satirists Stewart and Stephen Colbert among today’s best comics. As with Chaplin, he lauds their simultaneous levity and gravity.

“These guys came bursting out in this last terrible time, this need to be able to laugh,” he said.

Yet despite all his emphasis on comedy being a reflection of the times, Berman’s own brand of humor is not historical or political satire. He’s known for deceivingly simple routines in which he holds a fist to his ear and launches into complex one-sided improvised telephone conversations, often somewhat neurotic, with an imaginary listener. The sketches are timeless, whether he’s complaining to a hotel clerk about missing a window and door, or attempting to get his nephew to put his mother on the phone.

IS ANYBODY LISTENING?

According to allmusic.com, Berman “introduced a new breed of comedian — raw, intense and deeply personal; his material reflected everyday hopes and fears with uncanny precision.”

Berman said he grew up “impoverished,” with three families (all relatives) living in one apartment on Chicago’s West Side.

“It was very hard for us to just stay out of each others’ way,” Berman recalled. “Being heard was the hardest thing in the world in my upbringing.”

So he became a “showoff,” Berman said, laughing. “When I got into high school, I immediately tried to be in the drama class. I found out that I could make people laugh — or make people listen, anyway.”

After serving in the Navy, he studied acting at Chicago’s Goodwin Theatre, where he met his wife, Sarah. They’ve been married for 64 years and keep each other young.

Berman took on odd jobs as he searched for acting work. In New York, he wrote for Steve Allen’s TV show, but at his wife’s urging, gave up writing to return to Chicago to join The Compass Players, an improvisational comedy troupe that eventually became the famed Second City, whose alumni include Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and John Candy.

INSIGHT INTO IMPROV

Berman was a classically trained actor (he’s also done many Broadway and shows), so improvisation was new to him.

“I went to Chicago and I met these weird people” (such as fellow Compass Players Mike Nichols and Elaine May), he said. “I had not heard about improvisation until that point.”

Improv comedy requires cranial acuity and teamwork, Berman said.

“When someone offers anything in improvisation, you use it,” he said. “You’ve got to. In fact, the taking is the giving. By virtue of taking what has been handed you, you will go somewhere and wind up being far more funny than the guy who just wants to use your line as a setup. Believe me, your mind is working and will take you all kinds of places. It’s not ad-libbing: It’s improv.”

Improvisation, he said, is “in fact, commedia dell’arte,” a form of Italian comedy developed in the 16th century featuring improvised dialogue and stock characters. “We are creating in the same way that it was done years and years before,” Berman said.

Berman built up a reputation as a popular comedian at clubs and on TV, from variety programs to game shows like “What’s My Line?” and “Password.” In 1959 he released “Inside Shelley Berman,” a recording of his sketches that became the first comedy album to go gold and the first nonmusical recording to win a Grammy, in the Best Comedy Performance: Spoken Word category.

He’s also been a guest actor on numerous TV shows, both comedies and dramas, over the years. To name a few: “The Twilight Zone,” “Bewitched,” “Rawhide,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Adam-12,” CHiPS,” “Night Court,” “L.A. Law,” “Friends,” Grey’s Anatomy” and “Entourage.” He played a dentist on “Hannah Montana” and had a recurring role as a judge on “Boston Legal.” He loved improvising as Larry David’s dad, Nat, on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

During a ceremony at USC in 2008 to honor Berman, Cheryl Hines, who plays Larry’s wife on the show, recalled the episode that earned the actor an Emmy nomination. The scenario: Larry’s’ mother dies and his dad doesn’t tell him about the funeral.

Berman was the only “person in the world who could make that funny,” Hines said.

PIERCING POETRY

Berman has slowed down in recent years. He performs stand-up in Las Vegas about twice a year and is preparing for a one-man show at the end of July in Mill Valley.

At home, he keeps busy growing tomatoes, collecting knives — he owns more than 100 one-of-a-kind blades, including one given to him by Robin Williams — and sharpening a new skill: writing poetry.

Although Berman talks about humor’s relationship to what’s happening in the outside world, he has experienced turmoil, too.

In the 1980s, Berman’s son, Joshua, died of a brain tumor just before he turned 13. The Bermans, living in Beverly Hills at the time, moved to Bell Canyon to get away from the sadness.

Berman, who questioned the appropriateness of laughter and humor when his son died, wrote a poem for Joshua, “To Laughter With Questions.”

Here are the last two stanzas of the poem. The final one refers to Yahrzeit, a Jewish tradition that honors the anniversary of a family member’s birth with the lighting of a candle and recitation of the Kaddish, a prayer recited by mourners.

He was a rose too much in shade, too wise for promises, my laughter’s urgent lies. Leave me, he said, and when I left, he chose to go as well.

The candle takes its fire and I recite the Kaddish, the flame bobbing at my breath. Year by year the burning Yahrzeit sends its scent and glow even into laughter.

The poem is light and dark and laughter is still there.

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