In 1920, Liebman entered
vaudeville as a
sketch-comedy writer, and in 1924 or the Log Tavern Undaunted by the short run, he went on to co-write, with
Allen Boretz, the comedy play
Off to Buffalo, featuring
Hume Cronyn. This ran seven performances beginning February 21, 1939, at the
Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Back at the Tamiment Playhouse, Liebman recalled, "I was doing all the writing myself" until 1938, when he began working with
Sylvia Fine. whose talent Liebman immediately realized. He placed Kaye and comedian
Imogene Coca in a Tamiment musical,
The Straw Hat Revue, Yet another Tamiment discovery was
Carol Channing, who said of Liebman: "He was the oracle. If he approved, you were in show business." In 1948, he directed the sketches for the
revue,
Make Mine Manhattan, starring
Sid Caesar in his Broadway theatre debut and later a star of Liebman's
Your Show of Shows. Under his longtime guidance, Caesar emerged as one of TV's first superstars, a "comic genius." And as biographer
David Margolick has written, "More than anyone else, Max Liebman made Sid Caesar Sid Caesar." Liebman also introduced to Broadway such Poconos performers as
Betty Garrett and
Jules Munshin, and the
choreographer Lee Sherman, with whom he worked on
Make Mine Manhattan. ==References==