Michael Eisner was talking about artists, but you could make a similar observation about prospective mates. It's hard to find both nice and beautiful in the same woman. Or nice and handsome in the same man. Hard but not impossible. From what I've read here, Amy scored. So did I. But I know a lot of people, men and women, who are having a tough time finding Mr. or Ms. right, or even Mr. or Ms. minimally acceptable. It's tough out there. Blame it on the last generation of parents. Or blame it on culture. Whatever, it's tough.

Eisner at first said just "beautiful" and then went on to add a qualifier, with "unbelievably beautiful."

I wouldn't think that women who are pretty and funny would be all that hard to find. Off the top of my head I thought of five: Marlo Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, Kristen Wiig, Whitney Cummings (I loved her TV show Whitney) and Rita Rudner.

And personally, I've been with two women who were/are very pretty, the kind that turn heads. While one of them could be funny at times, her strident feminism and political activism usually overshadowed that. But the other one? Very funny. In fact, we met through a radio station message board here in Seattle and she captivated me with her hilarious writing before I ever knew what she looked like.

But when you get into the unbelievably beautiful territory then, yes, I wouldn't be surprised if funny was hard to find.

Also, while the no-funny zone may be larger with unbelievably beautiful women, I'm sure there's a similar zone with unbelievably handsome men.

*

Jim: But I know a lot of people, men and women, who are having a tough time finding Mr. or Ms. right,

I don't know. I think most people have found Mr. or Ms. Right. It's just that the "Mr." or "Ms." really isn't appropriate.

JD: "It's just that the "Mr." or "Ms." really isn't appropriate."

I didn't get that at first, but that's funny... And rings true.

I disagree, but I think if you're superhot, there are more options available, and if you are goofy-looking it is easier to find a home in comedy... across genders. I mean, Danny Devito ain't playing young action heros either.

JD: "It's just that the "Mr." or "Ms." really isn't appropriate."

Failure to remain gender neutral?

Eisner: "...the hardest artist to find is a beautiful, funny woman."

I remember my grandmother saying something similar in reference to Lucille Ball when I was 9 years old (early 60's): that actresses like Lucy who are both funny and beautiful are few.

Progressive and/or feminist comediennes are heavily constrained by political correctness. They won't do, say or even imply something that might be construed as depreciating or condescending to women, even directed at themselves. Too much of their humor is focused on vulgarity and sexist/feminist condescension, neither of which I find all that funny. Comediennes a generation or two ago weren't that limited; and men still aren't - Well, vulgarity was discouraged; but they were free to satirize, mock, exaggerate, exploit for a laugh the male/female ideals and stereotypes of the times.

I think there was an episode of I Love Lucy in which Ricky actually spanked Lucy, and she bawled clownishly like a child. Could a comedian, male or female, make a joke out of that today? (Feminists: "Tell TV producers to stop teaching boys that domestic violence is funny!")

And one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen on TV, back in the 60's, was Lucy and an Italian woman having a catfight in a huge tub of grapes. She was beautiful, hilarious, and appropriate for all ages.

Hysterical: 1. affected by uncontrolled extreme emotion; 2. extremely funny.

I'm sure the feminist's reaction to Eisner's comment will fit both definitions.

I'm in line with NicoleK.

Handsome men aren't funny either. I'm funnier than almost all the men I've been with. Though I do like the serious types my experience is that while men compromise more of the funny population there aren't alot of naturally funny people out there period.

To be funny you have to be observant about the ugliness of life and be ok with it. Rude in an endearing way. Self-deprecating. All those things usually come in either introverted depressive types or happy ADHDish extroverted types. The former ruminates over failures the latter quickly brushes them off. Male stand up comedians tend to be the former and a good example of the latter is Robert Downey Jr. Most people are right in the middle.

Now where people get garbled up is that men aren't as easily offended as women so that somehow gets misinterpreted as women being incapable of making people laugh. They can, just differently. And it has to be differently because a bitter experience a man might have that's funny might be interpreted as just plain sad in a woman.

Now, where is the outcry that there are not enough females in this profession?

Something must be done! Because, unfair!

Why do I think Amy's fishing for compliments?

ADHD is one of the best things for my humor. And Patrick, really, I'm not!

"I remember my grandmother saying something similar in reference to Lucille Ball when I was 9 years old (early 60's): that actresses like Lucy who are both funny and beautiful are few."

Lucille Ball had a reputation as a serious bitch in person.
I had a cousin who was a stewardess while Lucille Ball still had an active career.

The United Stews lived in dread of having her on their planes.

Along those lines . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I3qREbKqLw

from the British panel show "Quite Interesting."

Cameron Diaz is really funny, irl. Also, she used to,have pretty good sized acne scars.
But there's a big difference in acting funny and being funny, Actors can act as if they are funny or do funny things. Funny people are just funny.
Being likable and ffunny differs from being beautiful and likeable. Being all 3--pretty rare.

Beautiful and funny: Reese Witherspoon

We hear all the time that women ate better employees, performing better for less pay, and that women are better parents (default custody), better human beings (so we give them shorter prison sentences), and I even read where women make more effective police officers because they are more successful at talking suspects down without using force.

I fail to see how an opinion that men men may be better comedians is any more or less offensive.

NicoleK and Ppen are right in that there aren't many male comedians out there with male-model physiques. Both observations make a sort of sense if you buy that most of the best comedy comes from pain. Beautiful people are more likely to go through life having people defer to them rather than challenging them.

And about Lucille Ball: She was horribly insecure about her place in the industry for most of her life. I remember reading an interview with Vivian Vance, talking about how Lucy was OCD (not in a good way) on the set, and how she was convinced that the slightest thing would doom the show and her career. Vivian said she told her once, "Lucy, damnit, ease up a bit! You got the job!"

Eisner isn't wrong, and you can also say the same thing about male comics. Do you consider Jerry Seinfeld a sex symbol? How about George Carlin? How about Chris Rock or Dave Chappelle? To be a great comic, you usually have to go through some awful things, and for the most part, beautiful people are shielded from the unpleasant parts of life, female beauties especially. That's also the reason why you don't see many upper middle class and rich kids turn out to be great comics. To be able to make horrible, depressing things funny requires you to experience a lot of those awful things. Christopher Hitchens discussed this once, and women got up in arms, even though he made the exact same point, he also brought up the fact that men that aren't funny are weeded out of the gene pool, because women look for that in men. Men don't care if their mates are funny, for the most part.

But Reese isn't all that much fun to be around--she's very driven, never relaxed (much like Lucile Ball.) Diaz is very relaxed. She's like the modern Carole Lombard, who was funny as hell, as well as beautiful.
Pretty women who are funny usually have rather messy lives--Sarah Ferguson is very funny and you can see how well that worked out.

How about Christina Applegate on "Married With Children"?

That's part cultural trope, people like to think certain traits are rare in one or the other gender. How many women on this board have been complimented on possessing "unusual for a girl" traits? I have. And I don't feel particularly special, if I'm being honest.

Sarah Silverman

Julia: Louis-Dreyfus

Sophia Vergara

"I fail to see how an opinion that men men may be better comedians is any more or less offensive."

It's empowering to say that women are better than men, but it's sexist to say that men do something better than women.

Now do you see the difference?

To add to what Nathan said, going back a bit, we had the prematurely gray Steve Martin, the slobby Lenny Bruce, the trying-to-look-hip-but-can't-pull-it-off Smothers Brothers, and of course, Groucho Marx and Jerry Lewis. I can think of two suave and sophisticated guys who were in comedy: Dean Martin and Dan Rowan. Both of them tended to act more as straight men for their partners (Lewis and Dick Martin, respectively). Charlie Chaplin was a quite dashing fellow off-screen, but he deliberately messed with that onscreen. Which leads me to wonder: is the lack of beautiful people in comedy purely a function of what type of person goes into comedy? Or do audience expectations play into it?

Marilyn Monroe had a good sense for comedy, although she seldom got to use it.

Christina Applegate: Hard to tell. I never thought of her as particularly funny on Married with Children. But there are two factors there: One was that the characters were so outrageously written already that the actors didn't get to add much. The other was that the show focused on Ed O''Neill and Katey Sagal's characters; Applegate and David Faustino didn't get a lot of screen time, and when they did, it was usually just to do a specific bit. Now, Katey Sagal... there's a lady who is both screamingly funny and a georgous gal.

Sarah Silverman: I don't see her as beautiful, so she really doesn't meet the criteria. But her early routines were a hoot. Nowdays she's been infected by the political correctness bug, which has ruined her.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I have to admit I don't get her. Other than Seinfeld, I haven't seen her do anything that impresses me. I've tried to watch a few episodes of New Adventures of Old Christine and I couldn't get through them; there just didn't seem to be anything going on. IMO, the top-notch writing on Seinfeld mader her seem better than she was.

I'll second Tom's suggestions of Julie Louis-Dreyfus.

Maybe it was the only way to react; but, her "seeing the humor" in what happened was very classy when they spelled her name wrong on the Hollywood walk of fame:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu9OHnhl910

On with another funny lady - Ellen

I think Chelsea Handler is hot and very funny, but I'm not a guy.

On top of what everyone else is saying...Eisner's not talking about women with above average looks and humor, he's talking about "beautiful enough to star in movies as the sex symbol" and "funny enough to star in comedies". Even if the two were randomly distributed, how many people are going to be in the top 100 or so in the world at both?

I am sure Eisner and his wife (since 1967) have sat to dinner with enough trophy wives to know this to be true.

To kf:

Exactly. Most comedians cannot make me laugh out loud these days, and most people you see on the street - even if you only look at the young, thin ones - are not really stunning to look at, facially speaking. They aren't even necessarily reasonably attractive.

To Nathan:

Jane Walmsley, the American journalist who wrote the clever "Brit-Think, Ameri-Think" pointed out that to be a successful comic in the UK, you have to portray yourself as "a loser and a nitwit," IIRC. "It is YOU who are out of step with society..." But in the US, it's a bit different - you have to portray yourself as a minority member in any way possible and preferably be of a very modest but urban background - AND be cynical.

Does he mean to come up with funny stuff or act funny (i.e. presenting acting/presenting stuff others have written)? Then there is coming up with stuff in the moment versus managing to write stuff?

Just being able to act the part I don't think is so rare. Well, anything at the level he is talking about is rare but relatively speaking.

I don't think any of them named here are exceptionally beautiful. From my perspective the funny super well physiqued male is even rarer.

Lenona, you are right on with that observation. That's why Mr. Bean was so incredibly popular in the UK. Rowan Atkinson literally built his career on being a nitwit that happened to be a total jackass. That said, Note that we're literally having to dig and dig for attractive female comics. I like Dreyfus(Long time crush), and Lucy was a beautiful lady, but for every Lucy or Julia, I have 5 Roseannes, or 10 Lisa Lampanellis(Say what you want, but to be able to do what she does, and be funny is a gift, even if its a bit crude). It's the same on the male side, for every Eddie Murphy, you have 5 guys who look like Richard Pryor, or George Carlin.

Do you guys realize you are naming people who have already been selected by the market?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, I have to admit I don't get her. Other than Seinfeld, I haven't seen her do anything that impresses me. I've tried to watch a few episodes of New Adventures of Old Christine and I couldn't get through them; there just didn't seem to be anything going on. IMO, the top-notch writing on Seinfeld mader her seem better than she was.

Shes pretty good in Veep

While she never had me in stitches, Phyllis Diller was correctly, IMHO, considered a comedy legend. She purposely de-glammed herself as part of her act.

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