Name Disco Freddy | ||
Disco Freddy, also called Larry the Unbelievable at the beginning of his public career, was one of the notable characters during the late 1970s and early 1980s on the Riegelmann Boardwalk, which extends from Coney Island to Brighton Beach, in Brooklyn, N.Y. During his performing heyday, he was about 60 years old.
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Performances
Disco Freddy entertained crowds with a comedy and faux dance act on the boardwalk during the warm weather months, mainly in Brighton Beach. His shows consisted of dancing to music played on a large portable battery-powered transistor radio-tape recorder that he often held while he danced, interspersed with a monologue of jokes about his background and Yiddish culture. According to his routine, he grew up in the streets of Brownsville in Brooklyn, and had performed in Manhattan but the people there didn’t understand his humor or appreciate him. His movements resembled partial seizures, waving, complex tics, and windmill motions more than dancing, which delighted many in the crowds that assembled to watch him, while confusing others. He occasionally had unpredictable behavior during his act, such as rushing to the edge of the crowd to scare old women or chase teenagers on bicycles. On the other hand, he often was able to coax elderly women in the crowd to dance with him. Hundreds of people routinely gathered spontaneously to watch him, and he performed several times a day. Sometimes he did his dance act on the beach, or in the neighborhood around the boardwalk.
After several short dances, he often closed his performance by announcing that he was going to execute a very dangerous or death-defying stunt that had never been previously attempted. Using deliberate self-interruptions to build up the tension, he carefully positioned his jacket or a small used paper bag on the wooden boards of the boardwalk, smoothed it out, cleared a large space in front of him, backed away for a short distance, moved the crowd back, and finally donned a blindfold, took a running start, and jumped over the object, presenting the move as a remarkable achievement.
The reactions of those in the crowds ranged from laughing to mockery to incomprehension. He did not ask for or collect money for his performances. His act stopped some time in the mid-1980s, and his real name and current whereabouts are unknown.