YAKOV SMIRNOFF GETS LAST LAUGH ON DAVID LETTERMAN

YAKOV SMIRNOFF GETS LAST LAUGH ON DAVID LETTERMAN

BRANSON, Mich. (Wireless Flash) -- An important celebrity birthday is "rushin' around the corner: Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff will turn 50 on Wednesday (Jan. 24). During the 1980s, Smirnoff rose to fame with his anti- Communist comparisons between America and Russia which he capped with the phrase, "What a country!" When Communism fell in 1989, David Letterman joked that it would put Smirnoff out of a job -- but these days, Smirnoff says the fall of Communism was the best thing that could have happened to him because he now makes jokes about "relationships and human things." It must be working. For the last eight years, Smirnoff has owned his own theater in Branson, Missouri, where he entertains audiences with jokes, songs and by riding a horse on stage.