Art Schill, stand-up comic, former chemist and career counselor from Patchogue, dies at 90

Long Island-based stand-up comic Art Schill would end his shows with "Live, love, laugh, because you never know when this crazy ride's going to end."

"That's kind of what he lived by," recalled one of his two daughters, Lisa Schill Wichman, of Dix Hills. And Art Schill knew from crazy rides: The former chemist and executive career counselor took up comedy at age 81 and made a successful go of it. He performed in venues in three states, with his final performance on his 88th birthday in 2023. "He was always funny," Wichman said. "He always wanted to make people feel good and make people laugh."

And despite his late start, he was no novelty act, said fellow stand-up comic and radio news reporter David Weiss, the longtime play-by-play broadcaster for the Long Island Ducks.

"Audiences would react positively to Art because of his age — that would last about a minute or two," Weiss said. "Then you need to be funny. Then you have to get the audience laughing. And he was just funny. He would never bomb."

Other stand-ups, Weiss said, "loved performing with him, because the energy in the room would be off the charts."

And they performed with him more often than expected, Weiss added with a laugh. The name Art Schill became "a catchphrase for someone who would show up at a comedy show" who wasn’t on the bill "trying to get on to the show. Now, most times that can be annoying. With Art, it was something we loved — no one was upset about it because he always did well. We would look at the door, see Art come in and we’d say, ‘There you go. He's going to wedge his way into this show, too!’ "

After a few moments Weiss added, "I miss Art so much."

Schill, of Patchogue, died at NYU Langone Hospital-Suffolk on April 20 at age 90, of complications from metastasized bladder cancer.

Arthur Charles Schill was born Oct. 21, 1935, in Brooklyn, the younger of two sons of homemaker Pauline Lewis Schill and Morris Schill, who sold automotive equipment and later, on Long Island, heating oil.

The family joined the postwar suburban exodus, and Art Schill attended Valley Stream Central High School. After graduating in 1953, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, serving as an airman first class medic at Edwards Air Force Base in Lancaster, California, from January 1954 to October 1957.

Following his military service, he studied chemistry and journalism at Roanoke College in Virginia, leaving in his second year to work at the Catskills’ Concord Hotel, attending to entertainers.

"We had to make sure they always had what they needed," Schill told Newsday in 2018. "It was a great job. I met Buddy Hackett, Jack Carter and many other comedians" — and befriended a 16-year-old Liza Minnelli.

Schill married Ellen Marion Pann on Jan. 25, 1964, and the couple moved to Freeport. He eventually earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry at the City College of New York and worked as a chemist for Vicks International in New Rochelle, Revlon Corp. in the Bronx and Allied Chemical in Manhattan. In 1980 he became an executive career counselor, a profession in which he continued, part time and remotely, into at least the late 2010s.

Over the years, the family would live in Oceanside, Long Beach, Hauppauge and Coram, where his wife died in 2014. Schill, who then moved to Patchogue, found himself at loose ends, his daughter said. But seeing a senior comic perform on NBC’s "America’s Got Talent" inspired him to try stand-up himself.

Neither an in-person audition for "AGT" at Queens College nor a video submission got him on the show, but the effort prompted Wichman to sign him up for an eight-week comedy class at McGuires in Bohemia. "I thought, 'All right, it’s eight weeks of keeping him busy,’ " she said.

The eight weeks became six years. Schill had found his niche — one he had toyed with earlier in life, emceeing at the Oceanside Jewish Center, to which he belonged.

Schill would perform at such Long Island clubs as the Brokerage, Governor’s and My Father’s Place, as well as at Dangerfield’s in Manhattan, the Mohegan Sun hotel-casino in Connecticut and Villain Theater in Miami — and gratis at senior and veterans centers.

"He found a whole new life," his daughter said. "And he made this group of friends that are 20, 30, 40 years younger than him and who really, really cared about him."

In addition to Wichman, Schill is survived by his daughter Davi Schill, of Santa Cruz, California, and four grandsons.

A graveside service was held April 23 at New Montefiore Cemetery in West Babylon.