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 Comedian Lou Eisen is headlining Absolute Comedy, the new comedy club at Yonge and Eglinton, this week where he will not be performing any of his Angina Monologues routine. (MARK O'NEILL/SUN MEDIA) |
Lou Eisen doesn't exactly blame Ron Howard for his heart attack.
But the veteran Toronto comedian -- who has found a second career offering health professionals laughs and insight with a one-man show called The Angina Monologues -- did technically have the director's permission to let himself go.
Eisen played legendary cornerman Ray Arcel in the Russell Crowe film Cinderella Man, about champion Jim Braddock.
"Ron Howard said he wanted my clothes to be ill-fitting because it's the '30s and people wore old clothes then. He said, 'Stay the weight you are, or put on a bit. He didn't say, 'Beat the craft services table to death every day.'
The upshot was that Eisen put on 60 pounds by the time filming ended, and on Feb. 23, 2005, he woke up from a dream that he was having a heart attack, to discover that he actually was having one.
"The next thing I know, I'm in the ambulance and they're shouting into the radio, "We got an obese male, 40s, massive infarction! We need a cardiologist now!' And I remember saying to the paramedic, 'Boy, that poor bastard's in a lot of trouble!'
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"One of the first people to call me at the hospital was Angelo Dundee. He left another message at home (that) I still have: 'We need you in the corner. We got the Frazier fight coming up and we gotta put Muhammad on his feedbag.' I'm still great friends with him."
A bunch of medical procedures, time, turmoil and strict diet and exercise later, Eisen has lost some of his "method acting" weight, and got back on his feet to do standup again.
This week he's headlining Absolute Comedy, the new comedy club at Yonge & Eglinton (ironically situated in the old Yuk Yuk's space).
"I started getting calls to go back to work, and my cardiologist said, 'You're not ready yet.' Finally, three and a half months later, she said you can work now, but take it very easy. It was Windsor Yuk Yuk's, and I was terrified. They asked, 'Can you headline?' And I said I'm not sure if I can last a minute. I ended up hosting."
Soon it was back to the grind, but with a new attitude. "Every day is a gift," he says. But he wasn't inspired to do take it further until a road trip "somewhere in Northern Ontario" with fellow comic Kate Davis.
"I was saying, 'I go to all these agencies and they're not interested.' And she said, 'You need an angle.' And I said, 'I don't have an angle.' And she said, 'You had a heart attack, stupid. That's an angle.'"
The Angina Monologues -- a name suggested by Eisen's wife -- came together soon after. One of his first performances was at the Cardiac Rehab Centre on Rumsey Rd., where he now walks the track on a regular basis. "I just got back from a show in Montreal," he says of the Monologues. "Pharmaceutical people, health care professionals, a lot of Heart & Stroke Foundations -- they all pay to hear it."
He doesn't play it for civilians, though.
"Who wants to hear about someone's heart attack?" he says. For gigs such as this weekend's, he'll riff on headlines, such as the Jiri Tlusty online nude photos. "At least somebody on the Leafs is scoring," he says, adding, "What people don't know is that in Czech, the T is silent."