IN: Caesar was the youngest of three sons born to Jewish immigrants living in Yonkers, New York. His father was Max Ziser (1874-1946) and his mother was Ida (nee Raphael) (1887-1975). They likely were from Dabrowa Tarnowska, Poland. Reports state that the surname "Caesar" was given to Max, as a child, by an immigration official at Ellis Island.

After graduating from Yonkers High School in 1939, Caesar left home, intent on a musical career. He arrived in Manhattan and worked as an usher and then a doorman at the Capitol Theater there. He was ineligible to join the musicians' union in New York City until he established residency, but he found work as a saxophonist at the Vacationland Hotel, a resort located in the Catskill Mountains of Sullivan County, New York. Mentored by Don Appel, the resort's social director, Caesar played in the dance band and learned to perform comedy, doing three shows a week. He audited classes in clarinet and saxophone at the Juilliard School of Music. In 1939, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard, and was stationed in Brooklyn, New York, where he played in military revues and shows. Vernon Duke, the composer of Autumn in New York, April in Paris, and Taking a Chance on Love, was at the same base and collaborated with Caesar on musical revues.  During the summer of 1942, Caesar met his future wife, Florence Levy, at the Avon Lodge in the Catskills village of Woodridge, New York. They were married on July 17, 1943, and had three children: Michele, Rick and Karen. After joining the musicians' union, he briefly played with Shep Fields, Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak, Art Mooney and Benny Goodman. Later in his career, he performed "Sing, Sing, Sing" with Goodman for a TV performance.  Still in the service, Caesar was ordered to Palm Beach, Florida, where Vernon Duke and Howard Dietz were putting together a service revue called Tars and Spars. There he met the civilian director of the show, Max Liebman. When Caesar's comedy got bigger applause than the musical numbers, Liebman asked him to do stand-up bits between the songs. Tars and Spars toured nationally, and became Caesar's first major gig as a comedian. Liebman later produced Caesar's first television series.  After the war, the Caesars moved to Hollywood. In 1946, Columbia Pictures produced a film version of Tars and Spars in which Caesar reprised his role. The next year, he acted in The Guilt of Janet Ames. He turned down the lead of The Jolson Story as he did not want to be known as an impersonator, and turned down several other offers to play sidekick roles. He soon returned to New York, where he became the opening act for Joe E. Lewis at the Copacabana nightclub. He reunited with Liebman, who guided his stage material and presentation. That job led to a contract with the William Morris Agency and a nationwide tour. Caesar also performed in a Broadway revue, Make Mine Manhattan, which featured The Five Dollar Date--one of his first original pieces, in which he sang, acted, double-talked, pantomimed, and wrote the music. He won a 1948 Donaldson Award for his contributions to the musical.

Any other films

OUT: The Guilt of Janet Ames.

input: Sometime in 1971, new manager Miles Copeland III decided to re-organise the band, focussing on what he felt were Renaissance's strong points - Haslam's voice and Tout's piano. Will Romano in Mountains come out of the sky explained that "unlike many of the artists to which they were compared Renaissance allowed the piano and female voice to come to the forefront". Until then Haslam had shared vocals with Terry Crowe, who was in effect the band's chief vocalist. Crowe and Korner went, the former unreplaced, the latter replaced by a succession of bass players, including John Wetton (later of King Crimson, UK, and Asia), Frank Farrell (later in Supertramp) and Danny McCulloch (formerly of The Animals and a former bandmate of Dunford and Crowe in The Plebs), until the position settled with the inclusion of Jon Camp. It was also decided that Dunford would now concentrate on composing, and a new guitar player, Mick Parsons, was brought in for live work. In 1972, shortly before recording sessions for the new band's debut LP, drummer Terence Sullivan joined after Slade's initial replacement, Ginger Dixon, was deemed unsuitable following a European tour. Parsons died in a car accident and was replaced at short notice by Rob Hendry. The resulting line-up entered the studio having played only a dozen gigs together.  Prologue was released later in 1972 on EMI-Sovereign Records in the UK and on Capitol-Sovereign in North America. Prologue's music was, except for two songs by McCarty, composed by Dunford, with all lyrics by Thatcher-Newsinger. Rock radio stations (particularly in the northeast US and Cleveland) gave the song Spare Some Love significant airplay for a few months after the album's release, and fans of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer in particular, took notice of the band. Francis Monkman, of the group Curved Air (another group managed by Copeland), was a guest on VCS3 synthesiser on the final track "Rajah Khan".  Hendry was replaced for the Prologue tour by Peter Finberg, who in turn left the group shortly before the sessions for the next album. Michael Dunford then returned as (acoustic) guitarist, completing what most fans regard as the classic five-piece line-up, which would remain together through six studio albums. Ashes are Burning was released in 1973. Andy Powell, of the group Wishbone Ash, was brought in for a blistering electric guitar solo on the final track "Ashes are Burning", which became the band's anthem piece, extended to almost twenty minutes with a long bass solo and other instrumental workouts. (John Tout returned Powell's favour by playing organ on Wishbone Ash's 1972 album Argus.) The album became the band's first to chart in the US, where it reached No. 171 on the Billboard 200. The band played their first US concerts during that period, enjoying success on the East Coast in particular, which soon resulted in a special orchestral concert at New York's Academy of Music in May 1974. Soon Renaissance would choose to concentrate on the US market, as the UK press virtually ignored them.

Answer this question "Was it successful?"
output: