BADY, DISABLED COMEDIAN WHO TOURED WITH KINISON, DIES.

Byline: Fred Shuster Daily News Staff Writer

Doug Bady, a severely disabled comedian who toured as part of Sam Kinison's Outlaws of Comedy revue, died Friday at a Burbank hospital.

Bady, who was 31, stood 2 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 80 pounds, was born with muscular dystrophy and spent his life in a wheelchair, tended for the past nine years by companion Dave Lerman.

Yet Bady boasted a razor-sharp sense of humor and a self-deprecating tone that endeared him to such high-profile entertainers as Kinison and radio host Howard Stern.

When asked why he turned to comedy, Bady once replied: ``Well, the thought of doing construction work was out of the question.''

Stern paid tribute to the comedian Monday by replaying an appearance in which Bady hid in a closed steamer trunk on a New York street and cried, `Help me!' as unsuspecting pedestrians happened by. When one of the innocent bystanders opened the trunk, he was confronted with Bady's foul mouth.

Bady traveled with Kinison from 1987 to 1990, often performing a famous expletive-filled tirade based on an alleged incident in which Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) telethon host Jerry Lewis supposedly had a violent confrontation with the midget.

The Lewis incident made tabloid headlines. On July 10, 1990, the National Enquirer ran the front-page story: `` `Jerry Lewis attacked me in my wheelchair!' ... charges crippled victim of muscular dystrophy.'' Bady posed for the accompanying photo wearing an MDA telethon T-shirt.

It was 1987 when preacher-turned-comic Kinison caught Lerman and Bady's first attempt to break into show business, a freakish ventriloquist act performed at the Comedy Store in Hollywood. Kinison immediately signed the team as part of his traveling Outlaws of Comedy, a band of outrageous comedians.

Three weeks later, Bady was opening several weeks of shows for Kinison at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas.

Bady worked the road with Kinison for three years, performing sold-out shows in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, as well as at Madison Square Garden, New York's Nassau Coliseum and Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheatre.

The screaming Bady also appeared on Kinison's album ``Leader of the Banned'' and in his ``Banned'' video. Kinison was 38 when he was killed in a head-on collision near Needles, Calif., in April 1992.

The 28-year-old Lerman, who was often spotted at entertainment-industry events pushing the comedian's wheelchair, met Bady in 1979 while the two attended fifth grade in Southfield, Mich., a Detroit suburb where they grew up.

``We were on the elementary school newspaper,'' Lerman recalled. ``He was the only handicapped kid I'd ever met in my life. He was kind of like an outcast. Nobody would talk to him. He came up to me and said, `I've got the hall monitors pushing me from class to class. If you could push me, that way we could stop in the cafeteria and stuff.' I'm like, `Huh?' He said, `What's in it for you is you can get out of class.' So, we went to the principal.''

Bady persuaded the official to assign care of Bady at school to Lerman, unwittingly allowing the friends to goof off rather than get to class on time.

``Here's a guy who can't get out of bed by himself, and he's thinking 10 steps ahead of most people,'' Lerman said from the Burbank apartment he shared with Bady. ``That was one of two places in our lives that cemented our friendship.''

Lerman and Bady also attended Michigan State University together.

Muscular dystrophy is a chronic disease characterized by a progressive wasting of the muscles. Bady's similarly afflicted brother, Jim, was killed in a car accident at age 13 in 1982.

``There were ups and downs, and it was a roller-coaster ride,'' Lerman said. ``I didn't think I could be a caretaker. But I knew that as long as he was by my side, we could do the impossible. We went from being good friends to best friends to soul mates.

``He was an amazing guy.''

The cause of Bady's death was pending an autopsy. Bady was admitted to Thompson Memorial Medical Center in Burbank on Aug. 22 with severe stomach cramps.

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Photo

Photo: Doug Bady, who toured with Sam Kinison in the late ' 80s, died Friday in Burbank.