PROFESSOR IRWIN COREY Actor is the oldest on Broadway

The old comedian doesn't like to miss a nap.
NEW YORK (AP) -- It's five minutes to curtain, and the cast of "Sly Fox" is buzzing backstage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Eric Stoltz rambles downstairs, adjusting his shirt cuffs. Richard Dreyfuss emerges from a back room in his opening costume, a billowing white nightshirt. Elizabeth Berkley dashes past in sweat pants and stocking cap.
But their co-star, Professor Irwin Corey, is ready for his nap.
"I sleep most of the time," he confides, somewhat sheepishly.
Known as "professor" from his days in stand-up comedy, the wild-haired Corey can be excused a little shuteye -- at almost 90, he is surely the oldest actor working on Broadway. Since he doesn't appear in "Sly Fox" until the second act, a cot was brought into his dressing room, and a do-not-disturb "sleeping fox" sign was made for his doorknob.
But before he can nap, there's the huddle.
Joins the rest
Corey wanders on stage to join the rest of the cast, dressed in their 19th-century costumes of waistcoats and bustles. They link arms, talk softly among themselves, hum quietly, lean in close -- and yell an emphatic, unprintable epithet about Nazis.
"It's actually something that Irwin started," Stoltz says. "It's to unify our company energy and spirit. After we do it, everyone always says it's very true."
Corey explains: "It fills us with a sense of vengeance."
Known for improvisational riffs full of double-talk on matters scholarly and not-so, Corey will be recognized by viewers of the old Johnny Carson, Steve Allen or Merv Griffin shows as "The World's Foremost Authority."
It's a reputation he does his best to uphold. On a recent night at the Barrymore Theatre, Corey offers his thoughts on, among other things, Iraq ("They did have mass destruction weapons -- Dick Cheney has the receipt") Social Security ("It'll never run out of money!") and the Kennedy assassination ("We call Oswald the lone assassin? It's a lie.")
Comedic confusion
His dizzying mix of mock-intellectual circumlocutions, earnest political tirades and slapstick one-liners made Corey the king of comedic confusion. Between stints on Broadway and in film, he had a brief tour in the Army and did a write-in campaign for president on Hugh Hefner's Playboy ticket in 1959. His slogan: "He'll run for any party and bring his own bottle."
"That was a lot of fun," he recalls. "We had parades. They put my campaign manager in jail for disturbing the peace."
So who is he endorsing this year?
"One is 90 percent no good, and the other is 91 percent no good," he says. "Republicans and Democrats are both ends of the same string."
Nader, then? "Nah," he says.
In his dressing room at the Barrymore, alongside pictures of his 7-year-old grandson and a stack of books on Shakespeare and World War II, is a picture of Corey hugging Fidel Castro in 1993, when Corey went to Cuba to deliver thousands of dollars worth of medicine.
Corey tried to join the Communist Party back when doing so could mean an appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. But it was the Communist Party, not the government, that blacklisted him.
"I wanted to join the party, but they wouldn't let me," he says. "They said I was an anarchist."
Well, is he?
"I think so," he says.
Still, he had a plan if he were ever called before the McCarthy committee.
"They would say to me, you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? My answer would be 'uh, uh, s-s-s-sir, would you mind r-r-r-repeating the question?"'
A little slower
He moves a little slower now, and his Einstein-like hair is pure white. But lest you confuse him with the doddering court clerk he plays on stage, the still-spry professor comes equipped with zingers.
"Did you hear about the guy who went to the druggist and wanted to get some cyanide?" he asks. "The guy takes a picture of his wife out of his wallet, and the druggist says, 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you had a prescription!"'
He waits for the imagined drum roll, then springs another:
"This guy went to the library, wanted to get a book on suicide. The librarian said, 'Go look under the letter S.' He goes and he can't find it, and he says, 'There's nothing here!' She says, 'I know, they never bring them back.'"