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PEOPLE & ARTSFriday 8 April 2016

The Diceman cometh back for
Andrew Dice Clay comedy series

FRAZIER MOORE alter ego whose appear- my acting chops. And from
AP Television Writer ances used to fill arenas there the Diceman pheno-
NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew while his detractors blasted nema happened.”
Dice Clay finds out his live- him as “filthy,” ‘’racist” and On his new series, he says
“misogynous.” gratefully, he gets to act
In this April 4, 2016 file photo, “I paint these crazy sexual out a role — or, rather two:
Andrew Dice Clay poses for cartoon pictures that the a version of his real-life self
a portrait in New York to pro- audience relates to,” Clay as well as his public Dice-
mote his Showtime comedy declares. “It’s purely for the man persona.
series, “Dice,” premiering sake of comedy.” “They call the show a hy-
Sunday at 9:30 p.m. ET. The man born 58 years ago brid of my life,” he says,
as Andrew Clay Silverstein is by “them” referring mainly
Associated Press speaking affably, cordially to Scot Armstrong, who is
and at relatively low deci- credited as the series’ cre-
in girlfriend’s ex is paying bels, though bedecked in ator, executive producer,
alimony. Never mind that trademark Diceman style: show runner and key writer.
the monthly checks help black leather jacket, T-shirt Maybe “Clay Whisperer”
keep the lights on at the stretched across his mas- would sum it all up, to
household of this less-than- sive chest, tinted shades, judge from one of Clay’s
flourishing comedian — his leather fingerless gloves. anecdotes:
raging male ego just won’t “With the microscope I “I ran into an older guy,
stand for it! was put under, my career a lot older than me, in a
And then, on another epi- went down for a while,” CVS,” he recalls. This was
sode, comes Oscar-win- he concedes. But in recent shortly after the 2014 death
ning actor Adrien Brody, years he has enjoyed a re- of Joan Rivers, whom Clay
who asks Dice if he can surgence, and a wave of loved and admired, “and
shadow the comedian to unaccustomed respect, the guy says, ‘What did you
prepare for a Broadway thanks to acting turns in think of her?’ I said, ‘I think
role as the quintessential Woody Allen’s “Blue Jas- she was the greatest.’
manly man, the sort of mine” and Martin Scors- “He says, ‘I think she was a
swaggering Brooklynite ese’s current HBO drama real bitch.’”
that Clay personifies. Bro- series “Vinyl.” “I have no fuse,” Clay con-
dy transforms himself into Clay says he loves act- fides. “As you get older,
a Dice clone who even ing, explaining that was you lose that fuse.”
wants to observe the Dice- his gateway into entertain- So a few words were ex-
man’s technique in the ment. changed, with Clay ad-
bedroom. “When I got onstage as a vising the old gent to “do
Welcome to the world of comic nearly 40 years ago, yourself a favor and walk
“Dice,” a new Showtime it wasn’t about standup out of this store. You don’t
comedy premiering the comedy, it was about act- talk about someone when
first of its six episodes Sun- ing: I started developing they’ve passed like that.”q
day (9:30 p.m. EDT). Kevin
Corrigan plays Milkshake,
Dice’s sidekick. Natasha
Leggero guest stars as Car-
men, his longtime squeeze.
And his real-life grown sons
Dillon and Max Silverstein
play his sons.
“Dice” draws on the outra-
geous, chaotic life of this
performer and family man
as he scuffles in Las Vegas
for a show-biz comeback
— with his efforts often fall-
ing flat.
“Dice ruins everything,”
Clay said in a recent in-
terview, laughing at the
leather-clad lout at the
heart of his new series who,
in the first episode, gets his
nose out of joint when his
favorite casino boosts the
ATM fee to $5 and, as a
result, nearly drives him to
ruin his girlfriend’s brother’s
wedding.
This is the character Clay
has always insisted lives
apart from him as an on-
stage surrogate, a comic