Mark Russell, the political comic and musician best known for his PBS comedy specials, was battling prostate cancer.
Longtime political humorist Mark Russell, the wise-cracking piano player who skewered Washington’s elite with pithy one-liners and upbeat tunes, has died. He was 90.
Mark Russell has been doing his own blend of music and political satire on public television for 15 years. The bespectacled entertainer grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., in the 1940s and ’50s. He drew inspiration from radio comics Jack Benny and the acerbic Fred Allen, but idolized his uncle — a band singer with the staff orchestra on a local radio station and the only person in the family who had been an entertainer.
Russell said he had no career goals then, but wanted “to be in entertainment of some kind.” He described his musicianship as too much of an embarrassment to be a serious jazz pianist, but said he “put those three chords that I know to pretty good use.”
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