Entertainer, born in Vincennes, Indiana, USA. As a child he toured the midwest in a medicine show, and later gained fame as a variety performer of stage, radio, television, and films. He was voted the outstanding new radio star in 1941, and is remembered for the NBC television programme The Red Skelton Show (195171). He gave a farewell performance at Carnegie Hall in 1990.
| Red Skelton | |
|---|---|
| "When the stork brought you, Clem, I shoulda shot him on sight!" | |
| Born |
July 18, 1913 Vincennes, Indiana, USA |
| Died |
September 17, 1997 Palm Springs, California, USA |
Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton (July 18, 1913 – September 17, 1997) was an American comedian who was best known as a top radio and television star from 1937 to 1971. Skelton's show business career began in his teens as a circus clown and went on to Vaudeville, Broadway, films, radio, TV, clubs and casinos, while also pursuing another career as a painter.
Early life
Skelton was the son of a Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus clown who died shortly before he was born. Skelton himself got one of his earliest tastes of show business with the same circus as a teenager. After buying every newspaper in Skelton's stock, Wynn took the boy backstage and introduced him to every member of the show with which he was traveling. By age 15, Skelton had hit the road full-time as an entertainer, working everywhere from medicine shows and vaudeville to burlesque, showboats, minstrel shows and circuses.
Films
While performing in Kansas City in 1930, Skelton met and married his first wife, Edna Stillwell. Seven years after their marriage, Skelton caught his big break in two media at once: radio and film. Beginning with Having Wonderful Time (1938), Skelton appeared in more than 30 MGM films during the 1940s and 1950s.
Radio
After 1937 appearances on The Rudy Vallee Show, Skelton became a regular in 1939 on NBC's Avalon Time, sponsored by Avalon Cigarettes. On October 7, 1941, Skelton premiered his own radio show, The Raleigh Cigarette Program, developing routines involving a number of recurring characters, including punch-drunk boxer Cauliflower McPugg, inebriated Willie Lump-Lump and "mean widdle kid" Junior, whose favorite phrase ("I dood it!") became part of the American lexicon. Skelton also helped sell WWII war bonds on the top-rated show, which featured Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in the supporting cast, plus the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra and announcer Truman Bradley.
Skelton was drafted in March, 1944, and the popular series was discontinued June 6, 1944. Shipped overseas to serve with an Army entertainment unit as a private, Skelton had a nervous breakdown in Italy, spent three months in a hospital and was discharged in September, 1945. On December 4, 1945, The Raleigh Cigarette Program resumed where it left off with Skelton introducing some new characters, including Bolivar Shagnasty and J.
Television
In 1951 (the same year the network introduced I Love Lucy) CBS beckoned Skelton to bring his radio show to television. Skelton's weekly signoff -- "Good night and may God bless" -- became as familiar to television viewers as Edward R.
Skelton was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1989, but as Kadiddlehopper showed, he was more than an interpretive clown. Another Skelton staple, a pantomime of the crowd at a small-town parade as the American flag passes by, reflected Skelton's rural, Americana tastes.
In his autobiography Groucho And Me, Groucho Marx, in asserting that comic acting is much more difficult than straight acting, rated Red Skelton's acting ability extremely highly and considered him a worthy successor to Charles Chaplin. One of the last known on-camera interviews with Skelton was conducted by Steven F.
Off the air
Skelton kept his high television ratings into 1970 but he ran into two problems with CBS: demographics showed he no longer appealed to younger viewers, and his contracted annual salary raises grew disproportionately thanks to inflation. Since CBS had earlier decided to keep another longtime favourite whose appeal was strictly to elder audiences, Gunsmoke, it's possible that without Skelton's inflationary contract raises he might have been kept on the air a few more years.
Skelton was said to be bitter about CBS's cancellation for many years to follow. Skelton invited prominent Republicans, including Vice President Spiro T.
Aftermath
Skelton returned to live performance after his television days ended, in nightclubs and casinos and resorts, as well as performing such venues as Carnegie Hall.
In Death Valley Junction, California, circus performers painted by Marta Becket decorate the Red Skelton Room in the 23-room Amargosa Hotel, where Skelton stayed four times. The room is dedicated to Skelton, as explained by John Mulvihill in his essay "Lost Highway Hotel":
Marta Becket is the magic behind the Amargosa Hotel. Room 22 is where Red Skelton used to stay.Near the end of his life, Skelton said his daily routine included writing a short story a day (he collected the best ones in self-published chapbooks) and composing a piece of music a day (which he would then sell to providers of background music such as Muzak).
Red Skelton died in a hospital in Palm Springs, California of pneomonia on September 17, 1997.
In 2002 during the controversy of the phrase "Under God" in the US Pledge of Allegiance, a recording of a monologue he performed on his 1969 television show resurfaced.
The Red Skelton Bridge spans the Wabash River and provides the highway link between Illinois and Indiana on Highway 50, near his hometown of Vincennes, Indiana. The Red Skelton Performing Arts Center on the Vincennes University campus was constructed in 2006. According to the article, the stage at the Pantheon will be named in honor of Red Skelton. Dr. Kildare (1941) Whistling in the Dark (1941) Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day (1941) Lady Be Good (1941) Ship Ahoy (1942) Maisie Gets Her Man (1942) Panama Hattie (1942) Whistling in Dixie (1942) DuBarry Was a Lady (1943) Thousands Cheer (1943) I Dood It (1943) Whistling in Brooklyn (1943) Radio Bugs (1944) (short subject) (voice) Bathing Beauty (1944) The Luckiest Guy in the World (1946) (short subject) (voice) Ziegfeld Follies (1946) The Show-Off (1946) Merton of the Movies (1947) The Fuller Brush Man (1948) A Southern Yankee (1948) Neptune's Daughter (1949) The Yellow Cab Man (1950) Three Little Words (1950) Duchess of Idaho (1950) (cameo) The Fuller Brush Girl (1950) (cameo) Watch the Birdie (1950) Excuse My Dust (1951) Texas Carnival (1951) Lovely to Look At (1952) The Clown (1953) Half a Hero (1953) The Great Diamond Robbery (1953) Hollywood Goes to War (1954) (short subject) Susan Slept Here (1954) (cameo) Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) Public Pigeon No. One (1957) Ocean's Eleven (1960) Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) Around The World In 80 Days (1956) (cameo)
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