The King of Comedy (film) The King of Comedy (film) The King of Comedy is a 1982 American satirical black comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, and Sandra Bernhard. Written by Paul D. Zimmerman, the film focuses on themes including celebrity worship and American media culture. 20th Century Fox released the film on February 18, 1983, in the United States, though the film was released two months earlier in Iceland. Production began in New York on June 1, 1981, to avoid clashing with a forthcoming writers' strike, and opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1983. Rupert Pupkin (Robert
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro wife. In 1977, De Niro starred in Scorsese's "New York, New York", a musical-drama film. It was a musical tribute, featuring new songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb as well as standards, to Scorsese's home town of New York City, and starred De Niro and Liza Minnelli as a pair of musicians and lovers. During filming, the married Scorsese became romantically involved with Minnelli and began heavily using cocaine and other hard narcotics. At the time Andy Warhol wrote in his diary that Minnelli and Scorsese showed up at the door of a famous fashion designer demanding: "Give me