Two Hundred Eleven 20Th Century Comedian / Actors

By Larry Goldbeck M.D.

Comedy is centuries old. In Medieval Times monarchs were entertained by court jesters. Melodramas provided boredom and stress relief for the pioneers of America’s West.
The Nineteenth Century brought vaudeville and burlesque and entertainment jobs for many early comedians. Many of these passed on to their children their comedic skills. These 20th Century comedians are the subject of this book. They moved from burlesque and vaudeville to radio, Broadway, films, and some into television. Some remained “full-time” comedians and some chose serious acting roles at times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781664153707

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Larry Goldbeck, M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Larry Goldbeck, M.D. completed the writing of this book in 2020 and passed away in January 2021.

Rev. date: 01/12/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

818950

Contents

Foreword

Dedication

Regarding Terminology

Two Hundred Eleven Comedian Actors Of The Twentieth Century

Stage Names And Birth Names

Fifty-Four 20th Century Comedians Of Jewish Ancestry

Comedians Who Were Born Or Raised In Brooklyn

Comedians Who Were Born Or Raised In Areas Of New York City Other Than Brooklyn

Bud Abbott

Don Adams

Fred Allen

Gracie Allen

Marty Allen

Steve Allen

Fran Allison

Morey Amsterdam

Eddie Anderson

Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle

Eve Arden

Beatrice Arthur

Jean Arthur

Jim Backus

Lucille Ball

Orson Bean

Robert C. Benchley

William Bendix

Jack Benny

Edgar Bergen

Milton Berle

Shelley Berman

Joey Bishop

Victor Borge

Eddie Bracken

David Brenner

Fanny Brice

Lenny Bruce

Edgar Buchanan Jr.

George Burns

Charles Butterworth

Red Buttons

Sid Caesar

Godfrey Cambridge

John Candy

Judy Canova

Eddie Cantor

George Carlin

Art Carney

Johnny Carson

Jack Carter

Carol Channing

Charles Chaplin

Imogene Coca

Myron Cohen

Jerry Colonna

Tim Conway

Jackie Coogan

Irwin Corey

Charles Correll (Andy Brown Of Amos ’N’ Andy)

Lou Costello

Wally Cox

Robert Bob Cummings

Tony Curtis

Bill Daily

Bill Dana

Rodney Dangerfield

Joan Davis (Comedienne)

Dom DeLuise

William Demarest

Bob Denver

Andy Devine

Phyllis Diller

Margaret Dumont

Jimmy Durante

Buddy Ebsen

Bob Elliott (Radio Comedian)

Leon Errol

Chris Farley

Frank Fay

Marty Feldman

Norman Fell

Stepin Fetchit

Totie Fields

W. C. Fields

Larry Fine (of Three Stooges)

Frank Fontaine

Paul Ford

Redd Foxx

Eddie Foy Sr.

William Frawley

Stan Freberg

David Frost

Ed Gallagher

Estelle Getty

Jackie Gleason

George Gobel

Leo Gorcey

Gale Gordon

Frank Gorshin

Freeman Gosden (Amos)

Ray Goulding (Radio Comedian)

Cary Grant

Dick Gregory

Andy Griffith

Buddy Hackett

Alan Hale Jr.

Oliver Hardy

Phil Hartman

Hugh Herbert

Bill Hicks

Benny Hill

Judy Holliday

Bob Hope

Betty Hutton

Marty Ingels

John Inman

George Georgie Jessel

Arte Johnson

Al Jolson

Fibber Mcgee And Molly (a.k.a. Jim and Marian Jordan)

Madeline Kahn

Andy Kaufman

Danny Kaye

Buster Keaton

Edgar Kennedy

Percy Kilbride

Alan King

George Kirby

Don Knotts

Harvey Korman

Ernie Kovacs

Bert Lahr

Arthur Lake

Veronica Lake

Elsa Lanchester

Harry Langdon

Stan Laurel

Pinky Lee

Jack Lemmon

Jack E. Leonard

Jerry Lewis

Joe E. Lewis

Beatrice Lillie

George Lindsey

Mary Livingston

Harold Lloyd

Myrna Loy

Paul Lynde

Moms Mabley

Bernie Mac

Rose Marie

Dewey Pigmeat Markham

Penny Marshall

Dean Martin (Singer Comedian)

Chico Marx

Groucho Marx

Harpo Marx

Walter Matthau

Anne Meara

Una Merkel

Dudley Moore

Garry Moore

Mary Tyler Moore

Tim Moore

Victor Moore

Zero Mostel

Jim Nabors

Leslie Nielsen

Jack Oakie

Carroll O’connor

Jack Paar

Minnie Pearl

Harold Peary

Joe Penner

Zasu Pitts

Tom Poston

Richard Pryor

Edna Purviance

Gilda Radner

Tony Randall

Carl Reiner

Don Rickles

John Ritter

Joan Rivers

Will Rogers

Mickey Rooney

Dan Rowan

Charlie Ruggles

Nipsey Russell

Soupy Sales

Peter Sellers

Gary Shandling

Phil Silvers

Red Skelton

Ann Sothern

Hanley Stafford

Jean Stapleton

Harry Steppe

Gale Storm

The Three Stooges

Danny Thomas

Terry-Thomas

Sophie Tucker

Ben Turpin

Vivian Vance

Nancy Walker

Charles Weaver (a.k.a. Cliff Arquette)

Señor Wences

Mae West

Gene Wilder

Bert Williams

Robin Williams

Flip Wilson

Jonathan Winters

Ed Wynn

Alan Young

Gig Young

Roland Young

Henny Youngman

About The Author

References

Foreword

For an Encyclopedic Collection of Data

Comedy is centuries old. In Medieval Times, monarchs were entertained by court jesters. Melodramas provided boredom and stress relief for the pioneers of America’s West.

The Nineteenth Century brought vaudeville and burlesque and entertainment jobs for many early comedians. Many of these passed on to their children their comedic skills. These 20th Century comedians are the subject of this book. They moved from burlesque and vaudeville to radio, Broadway, films, and some into television. Some remained full-time comedians, and some chose serious acting roles at times. (An asterisk appears before their names in the complete list of performers.)

All information in this book is public. The reader is free to use any of its contents. The author took greatly fragmental data and consolidated it into a readable book.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of the wonderful, talented comedians of the past who lifted the spirits and brought happy moments to millions of people.

Regarding Terminology

The words comedian and comedienne are used throughout. Like the word actor, comedian is acceptable for female or male. Comedienne (from French) applies only to a female comic.

Definition of comedian

1archaic

a: a writer of comedies

b: an actor who plays comic roles

2: a comical individual specifically : a professional entertainer who uses any of various physical or verbal means to be amusing.

Definition of comedienne

: a woman who is a comedian

History and Etymology for comedienne

French comedienne, feminine of comedien comedian, from comedie

Definition of vaudeville

Vaudeville, a farce with music. In the United States the term connotes a light entertainment popular from the mid-1890s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, singers, and dancers.

Two Hundred Eleven Comedian

Actors Of The Twentieth Century

KEY: *indicates not thought of as full-time comedians, but who did excellent comedy roles occasionally.

A

Abbott, Bud

Adams, Don

Allen, Fred

Allen, Gracie

Allen, Marty

Allen, Steve

Allison, Fran

Amsterdam, Morey

Anderson, Eddie Rochester

Arbuckle, Roscoe Fatty

* Arden, Eve

Arthur, Bea

* Arthur, Jean

B

Backus, Jim

Ball, Lucille

* Bean, Orson

* Benchley, Robert

* Bendix, William

Benny, Jack

Bergen, Edgar

Berle, Milton

Berman, Shelley

* Bishop, Joey

Borge, Victor

Bracken, Eddie

Brenner, David

* Brice, Fanny

Brown, Joe E.

Bruce, Lenny

Buchanan, Edgar, Jr.

* Burns, George

Butterworth, Charles

* Buttons, Red

C

Caesar, Sid

Cambridge, Godfrey

Candy, John

Canova, Judy

Cantor, Eddie

Carlin, George

Carney, Art

Carson, Johnny

Carter, Jack

Channing, Carol

* Chaplin, Charles

Coca, Imogene

Cohen, Myron

Colonna, Jerry

Conway, Tim

Coogan, Jackie

Corey, Irwin

Correll, Charles

Costello, Lou

* Cox, Wally

Cummings, Bob

Curtis, Tony

D

Daily, Bill

Dana, Bill

* Dangerfield, Rodney

* Davis, Joan

DeLuise, Dom

* Demarest, William

Denver, Bob

Devine, Andy

* Diller, Phyllis

Dumont, Margaret

Durante, Jimmy

E

Ebsen, Buddy

Elliott, Bob

Errol, Leon

F

Farley, Chris

Fay, Frank

Feldman, Marty

* Fell, Norman

Fetchit, Stepin

Fields, Totie

* Fields, W. C.

Fine, Larry

Fontaine, Frank

* Ford, Paul

* Foxx, Red

Foy, Eddie, Sr.

* Frawley, William

Freberg, Stan

* Frost, David

G

Gallagher, Ed

Getty, Estelle

Gleason, Jackie

Gobel, George

Gorcey, Leo

* Gordon, Gayle

Gorshin, Frank

Gosden, Freeman

Goulding, Ray

* Grant, Cary

Gregory, Dick

* Griffith, Andy

H

Hackett, Buddy

* Hale, Allan, Jr.

Hardy, Oliver

Hartman, Phil

Herbert, Hugh

Hicks, Bill

Hill, Benny

* Holliday, Judy

* Hope, Bob

Hutton, Betty

I

Ingels, Marty

Inman, John

J

Jessel, George

Johnson, Arte

Jolson, Al

Jordan, Jim

Jordan, Marian

K

Kahn, Madeline

Kaufman, Andy

Kaye, Danny

Keaton, Buster

Kennedy, Edgar

Kilbride, Percy

King, Allan

Kirby, George

Knotts, Don

Korman, Harvey

Kovacs, Ernie

L

Lahr, Bert

Lake, Arthur

* Lake, Veronica

* Lanchester, Elsa

Langdon, Harry

Laurel, Stan

Lee, Pinky

* Lemmon, Jack

Leonard, Jack E.

* Lewis, Jerry

Lewis, Joe E.

* Lillie, Beatrice

Lindsey, George

Livingstone, Mary

Lloyd, Harold

* Loy, Myrna

Lynde, Paul

M

Mabley, Moms

Mac, Bernie

Marie, Rose

Markham, Dewey Pigmeat

Marshall, Penny

* Martin, Dean

Marx, Chico

Marx, Groucho

Marx, Harpo

Matthau, Walter

Meara, Anne

Merkel, Una

Moore, Dudley

Moore, Garry

Moore, Mary Tyler

Moore, Victor

Mostel, Zero

N

* Nabors, Jim

Nielsen, Leslie

O

Oakie, Jack

* O’Connor, Carroll

P

Paar, Jack

Pearl, Minnie

Peary, Harold

Penner, Joe

Pitts, ZaSu

* Poston, Tom

Pryor, Richard

Purviance, Edna

R

Radner, Gilda

* Randall, Tony

Reiner, Carl

Rickles, Don

Ritter, John

Rivers, Joan

* Rogers, Will

* Rooney, Mickey

Rowan, Dan

Ruggles, Charles

Russell, Nipsey

S

Sales, Soupy

Sellers, Peter

Shandling, Gary

Silvers, Phil

* Skelton, Red

* Sothern, Ann

Stafford, Hanley

* Stapleton, Jean

Steppe, Harry

* Storm, Gale

T

The Three Stooges

Thomas, Danny

Thomas, Terry-

Tucker, Sophie

Turpin, Ben

V

Vance, Vivian

W

* Walker, Nancy

Weaver, Charles

Wences, Señor

West, Mae

Wilder, Gene

Williams, Bert

* Williams, Robin

Wilson, Flip

Winters, Jonathan

* Wynn, Ed

Y

Young, Alan

* Young, Gig

* Young, Roland

Youngman, Henny

Stage Names And Birth Names

Fifty-Four 20th Century Comedians

Of Jewish Ancestry

Gene Wilder

Peter Sellers

Ed Wynn

Henny Youngman

Sophie Tucker

4 Marx Brothers

Bert Lahr

Jack E. Leonard

Jerry Lewis

Gilda Radner

Don Rickles

Joan Rivers

George Jessel

Al Jolson

Marty Ingels

Buddy Hackett

Judy Holliday

Estelle Getty

Leo Gorcey

Norman Fell

Larry Fine

Bill Dana

Rodney Dangerfield

Sid Caesar

Jack Carter

Myron Cohen

Irwin Corey

Tony Curtis

Jack Benny

Milton Berle

Joey Bishop

Victor Borge

Fanny Brice

Red Button

Don Adams

Bea Arthur

Phil Silvers

Danny Kaye

Tony Randall

Marty Allen

David Brenner

Shelley Berman

Eddie Cantor

Totie Fields

Madeline Kahn

Alan King

Harvey Korman

Moe Howard

Curly Howard

Shemp Howard

Carl Reiner

Comedians Who Were Born Or Raised In Brooklyn

Mae West

Henry Youngman

Veronica Lake

Joan Rivers

Mickey Rooney

Marty Ingels

Buddy Hackett

Jackie Gleason

Dom DeLuise

Jack Carter

Danny Kaye

Moe Howard

Curly Howard

Shemp Howard

Danny Kaye

Comedians Who Were Born Or Raised In Areas Of New York City Other Than Brooklyn

Four Marx Brothers

Carroll O’Connor

Bert Lahr

Joe E. Lewis

Jean Stapelton

Don Rickles

George Jessel

Judy Holliday

Estelle Getty

Leo Gorcey

Gale Gordon

Eddie Foy, Sr.

Rodney Dangerfield

Sid Caesar

George Carlin

Myron Cohen

Irwin Corey

Tony Curtis

Williams Bendix

Milton Berle

Joey Bishop

Fanny Brice

Red Buttons

Don Adams

Steve Allen

Bea Arthur

Jean Arthur

Eddie Cantor

Alan King

Jimmy Durante

Carl Reiner

Bud Abbott

Personal Life

He was born to parents who were employees of Barnum & Bailey Circus in New Jersey in 1897. Throughout his life, he was shy, quiet, and introverted. Physically, he was tall and slender. In 1918, he married a burlesque performer, Jenny Mae Pratt. She used Betty Smith for her stage name. He developed epileptic seizures during his twenties. The cause was never identified. He began drinking (heavy alcohol consumption) as a means of preventing his seizures (he thought). Late in life, Bud had several strokes (CVAs). He died from cancer in Woodland Hills, California, at age seventy-six.

Professional Life

During the 1920s, he worked as a clerk and cashier for burlesque companies. In 1936, he met Lou Costello who was doing vaudeville. Lou’s partner (straight man) failed to show up for their act, and Bud Abbott became his substitute. Their chemistry made for a great comedy team that lasted almost two decades, made them wealthy, and made them famous. Bud and Lou made three dozen movies between 1940 and 1952.

They had their own TV show on CBC, The Abbott and Costello Show (1952–1953). Several phonograph records were made by the team.

In spite of high earnings, Abbott had major money problems. He was forced to sell his home to pay a half-million dollars back taxes to the IRS.

Later in his career with Costello, the team disagreed on financial matters, and they split up. This caused great grief for Bud Abbott. In poor health, he retired at age sixty-three.

Trivia

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are the only persons who were not baseball players in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Don Adams

Personal Life

Donald Yarmy was born in New York City on April 13, 1923. His father was Jewish, and his mother was an Irish Catholic. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. During WWII, he was a US Marine and saw combat in the Battle of Guadalcanal. During that time, he contracted Dengue (Blackwater) Fever. His personal family life was less than ideal. He had three marriages and had fathered seven children. In his leisure, he enjoyed doing art painting and reading history. In 2005, he died from pneumonia.

Professional Life

Don started as a stand-up comedian. He worked mainly in nightclubs and did stints in Las Vegas. He was a nondrinker, and he really disliked the nightclub atmosphere. In 1954, he won an audition at the Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. Then he had spots on the popular TV shows of Perry Como and Garry Moore as a comedian. For the 1963 The Bill Dana TV Show, he played Glick, the house dick. This character was the prototype for his most famous role, Maxwell Smart, the bungling, pompous, and inept special agent for the TV hit Get Smart. For this, he won three Emmy Awards.

Fred Allen

Personal Life

Fred Allen was born as John Florence Sullivan in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894. In 1928, Fred married a fellow burlesque performer named Portland Hoffa. They were married until his death due to a heart attack in 1956 at age sixty-one.

Professional Life

While working for the Boston Public Library, he read extensively and was particularly interested in the topic of comedy. He used his mediocre talents of juggling and playing piano to get jobs in early vaudeville and burlesque. He used satire and farce as main elements of his comedy routines. He became a master of wordplay. Fred and Portland performed on the stage together in burlesque for a few years before finding their niche in the new medium called radio. During the dismal years of the Great Depression of the 1930s and throughout the stressful WWII years, 1941–1945, Fred’s radio show antics brought joy to millions of Americans. For many of the radio shows, he not only was the star performer, but he also wrote, directed, and produced. Over the years, the names of his shows changed several times as did the corporate sponsors. The Fred Allen Show morphed into Town Hall Tonight and then Texaco Star Theater. His sponsors, as well as Texaco, were Ford Motor Company, Bristol-Myers, and Standard Brands. The Fred Allen Show of the 1946–1947 season was the highest-rated radio show. It made Fred quite wealthy.

His radio popularity began to sag in the early 1950s, and Fred made a few unsuccessful attempts at television. He did not like television and once quipped, Television is a triumph of equipment over people. He had small roles and a half-dozen movies. He spent his final working years as a newspaper writer of humor.

Trivia

Fred Allen and Jack Benny had a mock radio feud lasting many years, but in real life, they were best of friends.

Gracie Allen

Personal Life

She was born in San Francisco on July 26, 1895, as Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen. Gracie’s parents were Irish Catholics, and she attended Star of the Sea Convent School in San Francisco. Gracie had three sisters. They all became talented dancers. In 1926, she married George Burns. They had formed a vaudeville team four years earlier. They adopted and reared two children, Sandra and Ronald Jon. At age sixty-nine, Gracie suffered a fatal heart attack.

Professional Life

Her early life in show business was with her three sisters doing Irish Folk dancing. They were The Four Colleens. At age fifteen, she began doing vaudeville acts. After she met George Burns in 1922, her career blossomed.

With George, they did vaudeville comedy acts, changing their routines according to audience reactions. Initially, she was the straight, and George was the comic. This was reversed with great success. Gracie came across as a naive, lovable nitwit. They made a few early movie shorts (1929 Lambchops), which gave them National exposure. Their transition to radio in the early 1930s was easy and successful. To increase her popularity and audiences, she and George did a variety of cross-country publicity stunts. She declared that she was running for president of the United States in 1940 on the Surprise Party Ticket.

In the early 1950s, Gracie and George had a highly successful television show on CBS. She retired in 1958, and without her, George’s TV stints were not widely appealing.

In addition to vaudeville, radio, and television success, Gracie (and George) appeared as comedians in several popular movies. Two of these were with W. C. Fields and one (A Damsel in Distress) with Fred Astaire.

Trivia

Gracie was born with a condition called heterochromia. She had one blue eye and one green eye.

Marty Allen

Personal Life

He was born in 1922 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, with the name given then to him as Morton David Alpern. Upon reaching adulthood, he was short and stocky with wild-looking eyes and fuzzy hair. He married Lorraine Trydelle. In 1984, eight years after Lorraine died, he married Karen Blackwell. They were still married when he died from pneumonia at age ninety-five in 2018. He served during WWII in the Army Air Corps. His long life brought him huge admiration, success, and wealth.

His estate when he died exceeded 60 million dollars. It would have been much more had he not been very charitable to many needy organizations.

Professional Life

Marty was a working dynamo throughout all of his life. He began as a door-to-door salesman. In addition to doing nightclub comedy, he starred in movies and in television doing both dramatic shows and comedy. He partnered with Steve Rossi for a highly popular comedy team during the sixties and seventies. Rossi played the straight man role much like Bud Abbott did with Lou Costello.

Trivia

Marty Allen’s phrase Hello Dere! became his signature.

Steve Allen

Personal Life

In 1921, in New York City, he was born to vaudeville comedians known as Montrose and Allen. He was married for nine years to Dorothy Goodman. They had three sons and divorced in 1952. His second wife was actress Jane Meadows. They had one son, Bill. Their marriage lasted forty-six years (until his death in 2000). They lived in Encino, California, part of the San Fernando Valley.

In October 2000, a freak minor auto collision caused Steve’s untimely death. He sustained a torn pulmonary vein with slowly caused cardiac tamponade. He did not realize the severity of his injury and sought no medical attention.

He enjoyed being a grandpa to twelve grandchildren. At the time of his death at seventy-eight, his six-feet-three-inches-tall frame weighed about two hundred pounds.

Professional Life

Steve is best known and remembered as an iconic American television personality, but his career in the entertainment world was multifaceted. Without exaggeration, he was the most productive person in the twentieth-century world of the arts, possibly the most productive ever in history. The 1985 edition of the Guinness Book of Records honored him by listing him as the most prolific musical composer of modern times. He actually wrote more than ten thousand songs. Many become popular hits like Impossible, Cool Yule, The Gravy Waltz, Theme from Picnic, and This Could Be the Start of Something Big (which he heard in his head while dreaming). Steve always carried a small tape recorder and immediately used it to record ideas that came to him throughout the day (and night). These thoughts on tape were used for comedy skits, books, and songs. His mind was keen and always in operation.

He wrote and published fifty-four books on a variety of topics, ranging from children’s stories to social issues to religion. Several of his books, in some way, dealt with religion. He was highly critical of organized religion and belonged to humanist and skeptical organizations that challenged traditional concepts. Nine of his books were mystery novels, and two were collections of poems.

For the musical theater, he wrote the score and lyrics for seven shows: The Bachelor, Sophie, Belle Starr, The Alchemist, Seymour Glick Is Alive but Sick (a satire), Alice in Wonderland, and his version of Dickenson’s A Christmas Carol.

Steve had only three years of piano lessons but was regarded as a first-class jazz pianist. There is an album (Concord), Steve Allen Plays Jazz Tonight, featuring him at the piano.

He started his career as a radio announcer in Phoenix. He dropped out of college (now Arizona State University) in Tempe, Arizona, to take the job. After a brief stint in the US Army, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began a radio comedy show called Smile Time. In 1949, he started his TV work as an announcer for wrestling. He was in a movie in 1949 called Down Memory Lane.

The Steve Allen Show began on television in 1950 and lasted two years. For this show, he moved to New York City. He was a regular guest on John Daly’s What’s My Line?, which aired from New York.

In 1954, Steve Allen created The Tonight Show, which is now the longest-running TV show. In 1957, he moved on, and Jack Paar continued to host the show until he was replaced by Johnny Carson. Steve started the man on the street interviews for The Tonight Show.

The primetime Sunday-night variety-hour The Steve Allen Show was begun in 1956. It ran for four years (pitted against The Ed Sullivan Show). The show’s regulars included Tom Poston, Louis Nye, and Don Knotts, all at that time relatively unknown performers. They would all later go on to stardom. For this show, he had many famous guests. One of them was his friend and future successor (after Paar) Johnny Carson. Allen’s Answer Man routine would later be used by Carson and be known as Carnac the Magnificent. Also, in 1956, Steve Allen starred in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, playing the title role, costarring Donna Reed.

As a comedian, Steve Allen was the master of ad libs. His razor-sharp, excellent mind enabled him to quickly think of funny things to interject. Once, he said, I laugh when I ad-lib for the same reason that the audience laughs. I’ve never heard that joke before.

Allen hosted a number of television shows from 1960 to 1980, including The New Steve Allen Show, I’ve Got a Secret, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour (which debuted Rob Reiner and Ruth Buzzi), Steve Allen’s Laugh-Back, and the exceptional, well-thought-of PBS show Meeting of Minds, which ran from 1977 to 1981. In 1986, Steve Allen was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

Trivia

Worth noting are a couple of quotes from Steve. He said, Beware of assuming that credentials establish intelligence. Another time, he remarked, If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed.

Fran Allison

Personal Life

Frances Helen Allison was born in La Porte City, Iowa, in 1907. She graduated from Coe College and taught elementary school for four years. She married Archie Levington, a music publisher, in 1940. They remained married until his death in 1978. Fran died at age eighty-one in California.

Professional Life

After her teaching years, she worked a few years as a broadcaster and singer for WMT Radio Waterloo. The action was in Chicago where she went to work for NBC. She became a regular personality called Aunt Fanny for the widely heard radio show, The Breakfast Club.

During this twenty-five-year stint (1937–1962), Fran had many other professional activities. Her real claim to fame began in 1947 with her television show called Kukla, Fran and Ollie. She was the puppeteer for this popular children’s show.

She later had her own television show and did several television musical specials.

Her awards include Three Emmys, a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, and a .44 cent US Postage Stamp showing her with Kukla and Ollie.

Morey Amsterdam

Personal Life

He was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Chicago in 1908 with the name Moritz Amsterdam. He had two older brothers. He grew up in San Francisco where his concert violinist father was concert master of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Morey was an excellent student and graduated from high school at fifteen. In 1933, he married Mabel Todd. They divorced after sixteen years. In 1949, he married Kay Patrick. She and he had two children, Gregory and Cathy. Kay Patrick Amsterdam became his widow when he died in 1995 at age eighty-seven. The three-vessel cardiac bypass done when he was sixty-nine gave him eighteen more years of life.

Professional Life

Like most of the early successful comedians, Morey started in vaudeville. For Morey, it was at age fourteen. When he was sixteen, he worked at a speakeasy in Chicago called Colosimo’s. It was owned by the famous underworld figure Al Capone. Capone liked Morey, whom he called Kid, and at times drove him to Capone’s home for dinner in Cicero. A gun battle at the club convinced him that he should seek other employment. He moved to California and was a scriptwriter for comedians Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Jack Benny, and Jimmy Durante. Then he started doing radio shows, and for a while, he was heard on three daily radio shows. He gained national attention. He was a pioneer television comedian. His show, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, smoothly transitioned from radio to TV. His popular TV show, The Morey Amsterdam Show, was set in a nightclub that allowed the show’s format great latitude for its contents. One of the show’s cast was a young Art Carney who portrayed a waiter. He called his five years (1961–1966) on the Dick Van Dyke Show, as Buddy Sorrel, the happiest years