Hiram Kasten, a comic/actor who was a part of the New York comedy membership scene within the Seventies and Eighties, died at the moment at his house in Batavia, New York at age 71.
He endured seven years of preventing by means of a mess of diseases, together with prostate most cancers, in response to his spouse, Diana Kisiel Kastenbaum. He died hours after their thirty eighth wedding ceremony anniversary.
Kasten, born Hiram Z. Kastenbaum, was a Bronx, New York native who dreamed of turning into an actor. After a couple of years of bouncing across the theater scene, he determined he would strive his hand at stand-up comedy.
He set his sights on The Comedian Strip, the place the MC was Jerry Seinfeld, who handed Hiram on his first audition. He quickly grew to become a daily on the membership. The 2 struck up a friendship that lasted for 45 years. It was additionally the place Hiram met to quickly be life-long pals, comedians Paul Reiser, Larry Miller, and Mark Schiff.
In the course of the Eighties, he grew to become a daily at Catch a Rising Star and infrequently The Improv, The Comedy Cellar, Caroline’s, and Dangerfield’s the latter the place he ran his personal present each Sunday night time for years.
By the late ’80s, Kasten moved to Los Angeles. He landed a task in a pilot for CBS with Frank Langella and Sally Kellerman, Dr. Paradise. Different roles adopted, together with taking part in Michael, a co-worker to Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in Seinfeld.
He additionally had visitor starring roles in Mad About You, Everyone Loves Raymond, Curb Your Enthusiasm, seventh Heaven, Brooklyn Bridge, The Recent Prince of Bel-Air, My Spouse and Children, Males of a Sure Age, Sure, Pricey “Cybill and L.A. Regulation, amongst different exhibits.
Tv author and producer Don Reo and actor/musician David Cassidy have been producing a present at The Desert Inn in Las Vegas known as The Rat Pack is Again, and so they have been casting for a Joey Bishop-like character so as to add the comedy ingredient to the present. Kasten was quickly sporting a tuxedo onstage in Vegas eight occasions every week for practically two years.
Afterwards, he continued his stand-up by performing in golf equipment and on cruise ships. He traveled the world on luxurious cruises resembling Seabourn, Royal Viking and Princess
He’s survived by his spouse, Diana, who in 2016, ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket in NY-27, his daughter, Millicent Jade Kastenbaum, together with brother-in-law, Kevin John Kisiel and quite a few nieces, nephews and cousins.
Funeral companies shall be at Schwartz Brothers-Jeffers Memorial Chapel, 114‑03 Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, New York (date and time to be introduced).
Burial will happen instantly after companies at Mount Hebron Cemetery, 130-04 Horace Harding Expressway, Flushing, New York. A memorial service shall be held in Los Angeles later this summer time, time and place to be introduced.
The household has requested that if anybody cares to make a memorial tribute that or not it’s made within the type of a charitable donation to Crossroads Home and Leisure Group Fund (previously The Actors Fund).