


Dick Capri, an Italian American who built his long comedy career at the summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains — nicknamed the Borscht Belt for its appeal to Jewish patrons — then hit it big decades later as one of the four stars of “Catskills on Broadway,” a nostalgic 1990s hit revue, died on Thursday at his home in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 93.
His son, Jeff Capri, who is also a comedian, confirmed the death.
In the nearly 40 years leading up to “Catskills on Broadway,” Mr. Capri honed his standup routine at nightclubs, at resorts in the Catskills and Pocono Mountains, and as the opening act for the heartthrob singers Engelbert Humperdinck and Tom Jones.
“I opened for Sinatra. Twice,” he told The New York Times in 1999. “Never met him.” Mr. Sinatra did not like to fritter away his time with opening acts, he said.
Mr. Capri was a staple of the Catskills, the constellation of mountain resorts where comedians developed a brand of comedy, popular with Jewish families in the mid-20th century, punctuated by rapid-fire one-liners and self-deprecating jokes laced with Yiddishisms.
It was in 1991 when Freddie Roman, a fellow Borscht Belt comedian, tapped Mr. Capri to join him in the cast of “Catskills on Broadway,” along with Mal Z. Lawrence and Marilyn Michaels.
“I wanted an Italian, and Robert De Niro wasn’t available,” Mr. Roman said in a 90th-birthday roast for Mr. Capri in 2021. (The event included Mr. Capri’s final performance.)