Actor Ken Jeong stepped in to help a woman who became ill during his performance. Photo / Getty Images
Actor Ken Jeong stepped in to help a woman who became ill during his performance. Photo / Getty Images
Stand-up comics, famously, do not like hecklers.
They ruin shows. They divert from meticulously calibrated jokes. The response to them is often so brutal and hilarious that heckler takedowns is itself a comedy subgenre.
Ken Jeong thought he was being heckled in Phoenix on Saturday when a woman in the third row during his set at the Stand Up Live Comedy Club unmoored the comedian with a disturbance.
Ken Jeong arrives for The Paley Center for Media's PaleyFest 2015 Fall TV preview. Photo / Getty
The lights came on, and it became clear the woman was having a seizure, an audience member later said.
Then, The Hangover and Community actor reverted to his dormant profession: doctor.
"He couldn't see what was going on with the lights. He thought he was being heckled," audience member Heather Holmberg told USA Today. "It was a moment where time stands still. Someone was having a crisis. There was a hush over the room."
Jeong, an internal medicine practitioner turned Hollywood funnyman, cleared the area and attended to the woman alongside a medic who happened to be in attendance, Holmberg said in a Sunday tweet.
The woman regained consciousness and returned to her feet, and Jeong stayed with her until an ambulance arrived, TMZ reported.
Jeong then returned to the stage to a round of applause, the entertainment site said.
His representative, Michelle Margolis, declined to make additional comments beyond saying the TMZ story was "accurate".
At least one audience member thought he killed it. "Great night! He is gracious and grateful . . . AND flipping funny!" Holmberg tweeted.
Jeong received his medical degree in 1995 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, though he soon began moonlighting as a comic.
Presenters Kevin Hart (L) and Ken Jeong pose in the press room during the 73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Photo / Getty
A break in a comedy contest led him to Los Angeles, where he performed sets after long days in a clinic, the Washington Post reported in 2011.
By then, Jeong transitioned to acting full time and stole scenes in The Hangover movies as the flamboyant gangster Leslie Chow. He also starred in the NBC sitcom Community.
He leveraged his medical experience in a short performance in the film Knocked Up and in his own sitcom Dr. Ken, which was cancelled after two seasons last year.
Jeong does not practice medicine anymore but is still licensed in California, though his certification expires in July, according to state records.
After Saturday's rescue, it may be time for Jeong to resurrect an old but favourite joke.
"What do you call the guy who graduates last in your class at med school? Doctor," he told the Post in 2011.
